


Murder in the Wards

by rasldasl



Category: Mass Effect, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Murder Mystery, Organized Crime, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-28 02:50:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6312451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rasldasl/pseuds/rasldasl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judy Hopps is struggling to make a name for herself in the rank & file of Citadel Security when a high-profile murder case puts her in the perfect position to advance.  She'll die before she passes up the opportunity to do real police work--but working with the first fox Spectre may do more to jeopardize her career than she realizes.</p><p>Mass Effect/Zootopia crossover because twitter made me. Also romance because I'm NickxJudy trash. (For those unfamiliar with/indifferent to Mass Effect, this is just Zootopia in space. You'll get the hang of it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lucky Day

The blood on the sidewalk was dark, like a wine stain. Judy almost mistook it, at first—already mentally drafting up a citation for littering, sighing at the paperwork her life had become.

But then she saw the foot, black as tar and almost as discrete, poking out of the alley. Training took over before she could think about it too carefully. Pistol in hand, she moved forward, eyes scanning the sidewalk for anything else out of place. A vole, clad in one of those environmental exo-suits favored by some small species, nearly trod in the blood. Judy quickly blocked her path, shooing her away with a firm sweep of her paw.

“Ma’am, I’m Citadel Security. I’m going to need you to tap your credentials into the nearest transit station and then leave the area.”

“This is a tremendous inconvenience!” she said, her voice crusted by the filter in the suit, but Judy was already moving on to the alley. 

In the dim lights of the ward she could make out a large body, dark furred but wearing an expensive cream-coloured suit—too rich for this part of the Citadel, certainly. She crouched and heaved against the bulk, shifting it enough to get a look into the face, to check the pulse on the neck—

But she already knew. The blood on the sidewalk had been dark, after all—rust-coloured. Old. The panther was long dead.

Judy’s omni-tool flashed to life as she held her wrist up to her mouth. Even as she patched into the C-Sec network, the orange glow revealed more details: the neatly manicured whiskers, the soft and well-groomed fur. In another ward he would’ve been nothing but a walking target, but Montega Ward was known for its complete middle-of-the-road unremarkability. At one point it was jokingly referred to as “the dental district”—for no other reason than because its only notable business was a single dentistry clinic.

“Judy! I was just talking about you!” Clawhauser’s voice chimed over her feed. "We were wondering if you could pick up some of those crullers on your way back to the—" 

“Clawhauser, I—I’ve got a five-thirty-delta.”

The cheetah breathed in sharply. This was only Judy’s fourth month at C-Sec—and certainly her first corpse.  She wasn’t sure how Clawhauser would react—or to be honest, even how _she_ should react. The soft cheetah seemed like he’d be better equipped to handle civil disobedience and unlicensed preaching.  But Judy heard the volley of beeps as he keyed in commands to the dispatch board, and she scolded herself for thinking that way—after all, wasn’t that how the rest of C-Sec saw her, too?

“I have your position. Sending units immediately. Should be there in—” he paused, triggering a few more beeps. “—thirty.”

Half an hour for the next C-Sec officer to arrive on scene. Judy withheld a sigh. She’d need to get back to the street, try and see how far that trail of blood went, see how far they’d need to lock it down. No doubt she could look forward to directing passers-by towards detours for the last three hours of her shift while a detective took over the _real_ work.  Probably wouldn’t even get to canvas the neighbourhood.

She glanced at the body in its fine clothes. That shirt—was it natural fibers? Unbelievable. Her eyes trailed across the prone figure, taking in his luxurious outfit, until they snagged on the tell-tale shape of a wallet.

Judy snapped a couple of pictures with her omni-tool before removing a stylus from her belt, carefully wedging it between the flaps of the wallet and flicking it open with one deft movement.  She raised her arm so her omni-tool illuminated the ID card, tilting her head in the dim light.

A curse erupted from her before she could choke it back.

“Judy? You all right?” Clawhauser asked. It was unlike her to be so … expressive.

“Scratch that delta, Clawhauser. This is a five-thirty- _alpha_.”

Clawhauser wasn’t one for cursing, himself, but the beeps on his end became even more frantic.

“They’ll be there in _fifteen_ , then,” he said. She could almost hear the sweat forming along the fur of his upper lip. “I’ll inform Executor Bogo. And … I’ll have to cancel the evening bridge tournament. This is gonna mean a lot of overtime.”

Judy took a step back, appraising the body with fresh eyes. Her heart began to race in apprehension.

 _On my shift_ , she thought. _On my beat_. She felt her face grow flush in a way her mother would find scandalous. This was a dead body, after all. Someone had _died_. Judy’s only interest should be in making sure it didn’t happen again.

And yet she quickly set to work photographing as much of the crime scene as she could, taking in every detail, every angle. Forensics would arrive and do the same, but it would take days for them to catalogue all the evidence—and even then, there was no guaranteeing she’d be given access to the case file. If she wanted in on this case at all, she’d have to do her own legwork.

An ambassador had died on her turf. And she was going to find the murderer.

 ___

Sure enough, forensics had arrived within fifteen minutes. Ten minutes after that came Executor Bogo, who questioned her brusquely about her discovery of the body before re-affirming the perimeter she’d established around the scene. He nodded distractedly and turned away from her.

 “Uh, sir?” she said. Bogo paused, shooting her a look over his shoulder.

 “There’s going to be a task force assigned to this, I assume?” she said. “I mean, a five-thirty- _alpha_ —”

Bogo gave a controlled sigh, a strained sigh that made him creak like old wooden beams. When he spoke it was with pained patience—as if she had, once again, wasted his time. Judy struggled to keep her posture erect in the face of his withering disappointment.

 “This has been assigned to Detective Lupinsky. He will choose his own task force,” Bogo replied. His dark gaze flicked dismissively from her feet—willed flat from years of practice—to the top of her twitching ears.

“No doubt he will be selecting for _experience_ ,” Bogo said, before turning and heading for the alley. 

 Judy’s ears sagged at that, and she felt a curdling disappointment take up residence in her abdomen. Lupinsky, an aging grey wolf, had the habit of holding his head in this certain way—as if his baleful gaze were a boulder atop a hill, and if he angled his snout, he could be sure it would reach terminal velocity before landing at the bottom. Lupinsky, as one might surmise, didn’t like Judy very much.

But then, not many people in C-Sec did. Clawhauser, certainly—but he liked everybody, and they shared a love of sweets. Lieutenant Ellis, a boisterous, cheerful elephant, had been very pleasant to Judy on her first day—but Judy had wished her a happy birthday, and what could anyone say to that without seeming a monster? No further camaraderie had developed, anyway, and Judy often found herself on the far side of stifled snickers and knowing looks whenever she entered the room.

Judy tried to remind herself that it didn’t matter—that her dream had been to join C-Sec, ever since rabbits were given access to Citadel Space and an embassy, and Judy learned she could combine her childhood longing for law enforcement with a newfound fascination for space.   

It was one thing to be a police officer on her homeworld—but imagine being a police officer on the  _Citadel_. What a joy! What an opportunity! It was a tremendous career move, and had nothing to do with any kind of fantasy about making lots of new and unique friends in this brave new world, the last unconquerable horizon, and yada yada yada …

Judy sourly observed as two elk police officers walked past without even acknowledging her.

“Don’t mind me, fellas. I’m just … doing my job. In the extremely limited capacity in which I’ve been tolerated,” she muttered.

The elk didn’t seem to notice—which was probably for the best. But she heard a disgruntled cough that made her ear twitch. She turned her head, suddenly feeling more sheepish than bunnyish.

“Detective Lupinsky!” she said, in her best attempt at a winning voice. The wolf had arrived on the scene, emerging from his black C-Sec-issue vehicle. He towered over her and—yes, there it was! His disapproving gaze came tumbling down upon her.

“Officer, uh—” he started, and for a moment Judy actually hoped he’d remember her name. Or even—and here she knew she was grasping desperately—get it wrong, so she could politely correct him, and he’d feel apologetic about getting it wrong, and she’d laugh it off and say _Oh, that’s all right, sir. What’s a little mix-up between friends?_ And he’d laugh at her fresh and easy approach and say _Why, that’s just the kind of attitude that will help me crack this case, I think_ , and—

But Lupinsky was already stalking off towards the alley. He hadn’t even _tried_.

“Officer Hopps, sir!” she called after him. If he heard, he chose not to acknowledge her.

 ___

At the end of her shift, Judy returned to her small apartment. It was late—or early, depending—but there was work still to be done, and she quickly kicked off her uniform and swathed herself in an old t-shirt. With a mug of tea for company, she crawled into bed and booted up her tablet.

Lupinsky would be choosing his taskforce tomorrow, and she didn’t stand a chance in Citadel space of getting on it. Not unless she could really impress him.

Logging into her C-Sec account, she quickly accessed the files from her omni-tool, and got to work.


	2. On the Case

While Judy made it to C-Sec Headquarters relatively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, such descriptors would be the slightest bit misleading. Her eyes were bright, certainly—bloodshot as they were from her all-nighter, squinting between the glow of her tablet and omni-tool as she compared notes and cross-referenced photographs. And her tail was bushy, as always—but she hadn’t showered, and the fur hung limper than usual.  Nevertheless, she was there, on time, and though her breath smelled like a bin of day-old coffee grounds her foot tapped eagerly on the ground.

From her desk she could just make out the elevator leading up the Presidium, where Bogo’s offices could be found. With laser focus she trained her gaze on the elevator doors, and when they opened with a small chime and a pneumatic hum, Judy’s foot stopped mid-tap, and she held herself ready.

Bogo emerged from the elevator with his head buried in notes, and he turned immediately on his heel for the bullpen. Though Judy had been the only one staring with such determination, it seemed the entire floor had been silently awaiting Bogo’s arrival—for they rose as one, chairs squeaking against the cold floors, and made their way forward.

Judy cut through the crowds with practiced efficiency, ducking through the legs of a horse as he held the door open, and snagged a seat near the front of the room. Bogo waited for the rest of the quad to file in, and it was odd to see him sit so still, so patiently.

The door swung shut behind the last officer, and Judy looked around. All were present and accounted for. They awaited only Lupinsky.

Bogo cleared his throat and looked to the door expectantly.

C-Sec officers shuffled in their seats. Judy exchanged a glance with the rhino to her right, and he shrugged.

Bogo surreptitiously tapped his omni-tool—a sturdy, rugged model that had more in common with the other C-Sec officers than with the sleek, slim UI’s preferred by the bureaucrats up on the Presidium.

Judy’s ears pricked first before anyone else’s and she turned towards the door—noting with satisfaction that a few other officers followed her lead. Beyond it, she could hear the sound of the elevator doors chime open—followed immediately by loud, but muffled, shouts.

“—think I give a damn about that? You have no business here!” said a voice that could only belong to Lupinsky, a growl laced at the edges. Another voice answered in turn, but at a more reasonable level, and Judy couldn’t make out the words.

And then Lupinsky again: “I’m sure I don’t know _what_ your job is, and I don’t give a—”

The door to the bullpen swung open, and Lupinsky cut himself short when he saw the ranks of C-Sec all turned towards him. He straightened, adjusting his tie, and stepped into the room, his nose wrinkled as if he’d just had breakfast with a skunk.

But in Lupinsky’s absence the doorway filled—well, at least, _half-_ filled—with the smallest person Judy had ever seen in C-Sec offices other than herself.

It was a fox. He was wearing street clothes—dark, practical affects you might see in the markets on any ward—but his movement betrayed him as law enforcement even if his attire said otherwise. His jacket was open, and she could make out the ghost of a weapon beneath the sheath of light fabric.

He stepped into the bullpen and, taking in the sight of the officers around him, raised his paw to give them a lazy, one-fingered salute.

“At ease, folks,” he said. He moved to the front of the room, brushing past Judy as he took his place next to Lupinsky and Bogo.

Judy turned to McHorn, who had nothing but another disinterested shrug for her. She looked back to the front, and thought, for a moment, that she’d caught the fox staring—but his gaze shifted naturally from her in the next instant, and it seemed more likely that she’d simply caught him as he took in the room.

Bogo cleared his throat.

“Last night at oh-nine-hundred standard hours, the body of Ambassador Bagheera was—”

Judy’s brow furrowed as Bogo’s introduction to the murder continued. That was it? No introduction—no explanation for the mysterious fox? Bogo tolerated interlopers about as well as he tolerated insubordination—which, if Judy’s record in her brief four months a C-Sec were anything to go by, was very, _very_ poorly.

_You put one little slip in the suggestion box, and suddenly you’re the bad guy,_ she thought. Why even put out a suggestion box unless it was okay to put suggestions in? She frowned away the memory and turned her gaze back on the fox.

He had to be law enforcement. No way he was press—not with that swagger. And extremely unlikely he was a bureaucrat, packing heat as he was. On top of that, foxes were also relatively new to the galactic stage, and had only received their embassy a little before bunnies. A new recruit? A hot-shot transfer from his homeworld?

Once again their eyes met, but Judy didn’t turn away.

_What’s the deal, fox?_ she thought. Either he read the question in her gaze or simply found her open scrutiny amusing; he smirked, and turned his attention to Bogo.

“We’re still awaiting results back from forensics, but at the moment we believe Bagheera was fatally wounded in the Mondega Ward—”

Judy’s ears pricked at this, and she cleared her throat—a tiny little squeak, no more intrusive than a mouse’s sneeze. Bogo’s eyes narrowed at her, but he continued.

“As witnesses recall a dark figure wandering the streets at—”

Judy cleared her throat again, this time raising her paw into the air. Bogo shot her a stare so icy they’d feel it in Tundra Ward and Lupinsky looked like he’d just peeled pack the tile in his bathroom to find a new species of mould sporing in the cracks. The fox seemed politely—albeit smugly—interested.

“Officer Hopps, do you need to leave the room to clear your—” he curled one lip into a sneer, “—congestion?”

“Ah, no, sir,” Hopps said, smiling jovially. “It’s just, I was first officer on the scene, and—”

“This should be good,” Lupinsky muttered, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear; he was rewarded with a snigger from the other officers. Judy’s smile faltered for only the briefest of moments.

“—and I couldn’t help but notice, at the time—just a tiny little detail. Anyone could miss it, really.”

“Get to the point,” Bogo said.

“His cane, sir,” she said, simply.

Bogo’s hoof jerked as if to rub at his temples, but he thought better of it, instead gripping the podium tightly. Lupinsky’s sneer continued to unfurl while the fox watched her carefully.

“There was no cane, Hopps,” Bogo said wearily.

“Yes, sir. Exactly.”

She paused just long enough for Bogo’s eyebrows to lift—just slightly. Just enough to show he was piecing it together.

“A quick check on the extranet reveals that Ambassador Bagheera—formerly of the panther planetary regiment—sustained an injury in his first tour of service and refused to undergo synthetic hip replacement. He used a cane—which was notably absent from the scene. It’s possible someone might have stolen it before I arrived, of course, but it seems more likely that his body might have been dumped, sir.”

Lupinsky stepped forward, casting his landslide of dour discontent down upon her.

“The blood pools suggest otherwise, officer. Perhaps you’d be willing to let the forensics team and the _real_ investigators—”

“All due respect, detective—the blood only shows that _someone_ was wounded there,” Judy said. “Not necessarily Bagheera. Perhaps someone else.”

Lupinsky scoffed, rolling up his sleeves and shoving his paws impatiently in his pockets.

“Oh yes? And who would that be? The Tooth Fairy?”

“Unlikely she could have lifted the body on her own, sir,” Judy replied.

There was a sharp bark of laughter and both Lupinsky and Bogo turned to glare at the fox, who was quickly trying to disguise his amusement with a cough.  Lupinsky’s look was one of thunder—and she wasn’t sure whether it was intended for her, the fox, or both.

The fox clearly thought they were in it together, and he winked at her, sticking his own paws casually in his pockets.

As he did so, Judy got a glimpse of the pistol sitting in his holster—a chrome-plated grip with a red-and-blue check pattern across the bottom of the heat clip—and her breath caught in her throat. She recognized it immediately—heck, she’d practically drooled over it during academy training, when they’d been taught to recognize and sabotage different weapons.

It was an HMWP. Spectre gear.

She looked back up at the fox. The smirk was gone, his expression shrouded behind half-lidded eyes.

_Heck. Of course the Council would send a Spectre_ , she thought, silently berating herself for not putting it together sooner. If she hadn’t been so low on sleep, so focussed on worming her way onto Lupinsky’s taskforce, she’d have figured it out right away.

But then—if the Council had sent a Spectre, it wasn’t just _Lupinsky’s_ taskforce anymore.

_Aha_ , she thought. She leaned forward against the desk, an eager—and perhaps, if she were honest, just a _bit_ bloodthirsty—smile creeping across her face.

“No doubt forensics will have a full report for us soon,” Bogo said, rapping his knuckles sharply on his podium. “For now, Detective Lupinsky will be working with the Council to try and resolve this matter as quickly as possible. Detective, perhaps you’d like to—”

“Actually, Executor. Let me just step in right here,” the fox said, suddenly, patting Bogo on the leg. The buffalo looked down at his knee with an expression akin to betrayal.

“You’re probably wondering how I fit into this mess, so, just to be upfront: I’m a Spectre. Yes, the rumours are true. Fox Spectre. Just to—just to put that out there,” the fox said, addressing the room. He tugged on the collar of his coat and cast an appraising glance at the officers. Next to Judy, McHorn was leaning across the aisle to exchange muted remarks with Ellis.

A fox Spectre? Judy tried to recall whether she’d heard anything about that in the news—there wasn’t even a fox C-Sec officer. But then, foxes had already attracted a reputation for being willing to work outside the law. Good for Spectres—bad for C-Sec.

“That said, I’m not very big on … large groups. Tend to work better on my own. So I think I’d like to keep this team pretty small—Lupinsky, wouldn’t you agree?” the fox said. To anyone his tone might have seemed inviting—respectful, even. But the smirk on his snout was unmistakably antagonizing.

Lupinsky’s lips curled, revealing black gums.

“It’s like we’re on the same wavelength,” the Spectre said, with just a hint of awe. “So, without further ado—”

He waved his paw over his head as if casting a magic spell, fingers wiggling in the air, before pointing in Judy’s direction.

“Ta da! The bunny. You’re on the team.”

Judy felt her heart leap into her chest, and she slammed both paws down on the table in front of her, practically hauling herself out of her seat.

“Yessssssss!” she crowed, at the same time as Lupinsky’s groan of outrage.

“ _What_?!”

“Aaaaaand—” the Spectre cast one more sweeping paw over the line of officers before carefully retracting his arm, his fingers curled inwards. “That’ll do. Just the one, I think.”

Judy was practically shaking with excitement, but she froze long enough to take in Lupinsky’s sputtering indignation.

“Uh, Spectre, we have a selection of dossiers for you to—” Bogo started, but the fox was already waving everyone away with a dismissive gesture. C-Sec officers began to rise from their seats, albeit slowly and with a fair amount of confusion.

“Small team, Executor. Spectre gets what Spectre wants. Spectre is very particular,” the Spectre said.

“Yes, but this is a top priority investigation—”

“All the more reason to keep it small! Confidential. You’ll thank me when the press comes to call.”

Lupinsky’s fists were balled at his sides, and as the Spectre stepped forward he looked like he was about to punch a hole straight through the fox’s snout.

“Problem, Lupinsky?” the Spectre asked.

“I told the Council I would work with you,” Lupinsky said, “against every fibre of better judgment I have—”

“Good for the bowels, I hear,” the Spectre said.

“But we can’t be expected to complete this investigation without a strong team!”

The Spectre looked around at this, a shocked expression arching his eyebrows.

“And we don’t have that? A decorated—albeit well-past-his-prime—detective, and a—well, a rabbit? First on the scene, she says. I like the cut of her jib.”

“Yessssssss!” Judy said, vibrating in her seat. Her lips clamped shut as Lupinsky turned to her, his face scarred with barely suppressed incandescence.

“Look at her—practically generating her own probability field over there. Careful, Fluff, or you’re going to phase through the floor," the fox said.

Judy tried to still her trembling body by gripping the table in front of her, but it rattled under her paw. McHorn shot her an alarmed look before quickly rising from his seat.

“Are we, uh, dismissed, sir?” McHorn asked, looking to Executor Bogo.

“No, you are not!” Lupinsky said. “Wilde—I _will not tolerate this_. This officer is an amateur and a—a _bunny_ , of all things. If you choose to put your whims above this investigation then that is the Council’s business. You can do it _without_ me.”

The rattling of Judy’s table stopped, her muscles coiled in tension. She held her breath, eyes flicking between the fox and Lupinsky.

The Spectre—Wilde, she supposed—scratched his jaw, taking a deep breath before nodding in slow, resigned understanding.

“Noooooo,” Judy squeaked under her breath. She had been _so close_!

“Well, I understand, Lupinsky,” Wilde said, and Judy felt her knees lock up beneath her. It wasn’t fair! She’d worked so hard—and now Lupinsky was kicking her off the team with a tantrum, and—

The Spectre tapped his claws on the table surface in front of her.

“Look alive, Fluff. You’re with me,” he said.

And with a swish of his tail, he strutted from the room.

Judy looked to Lupinsky, eyes wide. He stared back at her with an expression as stunned as her own.

_This is how I die_ , thought Judy. _Murdered by a superior_. _Just like the fortune teller said._

Then:  _So worth it, though._

No one else had moved—McHorn still stood at his seat, uncertain. Judy looked to Bogo, who took his hoof away from his face long enough to gesture towards the door.

“You heard him, Hopps,” he said, and he sounded as if he’d walked a thousand miles only to find himself back where he started.

“So … so I’m on the team?” she asked.

“Such as it is,” Bogo said. He began rifling the papers in front of him.

“And—and I get to investigate the murder?”

“Hopps,” Bogo said, his voice laced with a stern warning. Lupinsky was starting to tremble, emerging from his stunned stupor. Judy hopped down from her seat, saluting smartly.

“Sir! I—I won’t let you down, sir!” she said, and with a wink at the shocked McHorn, she scurried after the Spectre.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Wearing Their Blues

Judy practically skipped from the bullpen, noticing as she did so that the Spectre was waiting for her on the far end of the work floor, studying his omni-tool.  When she slid to a halt in front of him, she was breathless, and her cheeks felt sore from grinning.

“Officer Judy Hopps, sir,” she said, saluting with a click of her heels and a smart snap of her fingers.

“I know,” he said, tilting his omni-tool briefly towards her. “Four months on the job, huh?”

Judy’s smile faltered as she looked between him and the orange glow on his arm.

“Yes, sir. First rabbit at C-Sec. Came in top of my class at the academy—”

“Very impressive,” he said, in a tone of voice that suggested it was anything but. He lowered his wrist, studying her with the same dry smirk.

“Well, I-I just want to thank you for selecting me for your task … force. For your … team. As your … partner?” she said, her face growing warmer as she said it.

Wait—had that really just happened? _He and I are going to be the only ones on the case … together?  Why?_

The fox watched as the gears turned in her head, wrenching the skin of her brow.

“Don’t worry about it too much, Carrots,” he said. “I like having an assistant.”

Judy’s mouth opened, and then shut, and then opened again.

“That’s—that’s not my name, sir. It’s Officer Judy Hopps; junior officer, third class,” she said. “Which you know. From your omni-tool.”

The Spectre simply turned, heading for the elevator that would take him down into the wards.

Judy threw a glance over her shoulder. The other officers had cleared out of the bullpen, and through the tinted windows she could see Bogo conferring with Lupinsky, their shoulders hunched.

She shook her head, hurrying to catch up.

“And what should I call you, sir? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking?” she asked, struggling to remain the right balance of respectful and pleasant, despite a growing doubt taking root in the back of her mind.  Technically she knew his name already—Wilde. But a formal introduction was usually considered polite, no matter what species you were.

Wilde glanced at her before the elevator doors opened with a pleasant chuffing noise.

“What if I _did_ mind you asking? What would you do?” he asked, stepping inside. Judy’s brow furrowed in frustration. He minded her asking? What? Was it a fox thing? Maybe it was a fox thing. What did she know about foxes? _Anything_ could be a fox thing.

“Uh, I’d—look you up on my omni-tool the second you weren’t paying attention,” she said, distracted.

“Kinda surprised you’d even wait. I mean, I wouldn’t,” he said. He held his up his wrist again, though his omni-tool wasn’t currently active. “I didn’t.”

She stared at him, confused. He sighed.

“The name’s Nick Wilde. You can call me whatever you want,” he said. “Honestly I’d prefer if you dropped the whole ‘sir’ business. No need to talk to me like I’m Lupinsky.”

“I take it you’re not a fan of the detective, si—Spectre. Wilde,” she said. Nick selected his floor—the garage—and turned to give her a dry smile.

“I’d love to bond over our mutual distaste for Mister Grumpypants,” he said, “But maybe we should talk about the case. You have any other hunches, or were those wild cards you threw out in the meeting just a fluke?”

For a moment, the needling doubt disappeared. Her face warmed again, and she found herself rubbing her paws together in anticipation. She clasped them quickly behind her back and tried to look modest.

“Well, I’m sure I didn’t notice as much as you would have in _your_ perusal of the case file, s—Wilde,” she said, and he cocked a skeptical brow in her direction.

“Really?” he said. She grinned sheepishly.

“All right. I might have done some surfing last night and noticed that Ambassador Bagheera made headlines recently with his, um, affair,” she said, coughing into her shoulder. Nick cocked an eyebrow at her but said nothing, so she continued. “I mean, a quick statistical analysis shows that he’s been mentioned in the news about fifty-seven percent more than average—a full thirteen percent above Sinistra Fleets, the bat pop star who was caught in an illegal blood trade. That’s a lot of notoriety.”

The elevator door opened at the parking garage, and Judy followed Nick towards a sedan the colour of an avocado. She cocked her head—it wasn’t exactly the kind of vehicle she’d expect a Spectre to drive. There was a long scuff down the passenger side that ended with a swipe of blue paint, and made it look like the vehicle had a shoddily-plastered racing stripe. One of the headlights was broken, and—when the doors opened—the passenger seat was littered with old drink canisters.

Nick hastily cleared them away, tossing the junk into the backseat.

“Its, uh—just—I wasn’t actually expecting to come out of here with a passenger. Just gimme a—” He cleared his throat, wiping down the seat cushion with a paw. Then he stepped back and gestured for her to get in.

Judy threw him a confused look—but then, maybe he’d expected to be riding with Lupinsky, before that working relationship disintegrated. She crawled into the car and glanced over her shoulder—the back seat was even worse than the passenger had been, and made more so by Nick’s hasty redistribution. She caught sight of a garish green collared shirt bunched up in the back. 

In the driver’s seat, Nick pushed the ignition. The car hummed to life, lifting from the ground.

“Buckle up, Carrots,” he said. “It’s the _law_.”

“No, it isn’t,” Judy said, confused. “Not as long as your kinetic—oh.”

As she spoke, he’d pointed to the light on his dashboard, indicating the kinetic barriers were in need of maintenance. Judy swallowed, quickly buckling herself into place.

“Not that I don’t appreciate this opportunity,” she said. “And I don’t mean any disrespect to your species if it’s a fox … quality. But you should really stop calling me ‘Carrots’.”

“Should I?” he said.

He exited the garage, pulling them into traffic. Judy found herself thinking of the scuff along her side of the car and she flinched as he changed lanes.  She cast one last careful look out the window before taking a deep breath and turning to him.

“Crime scene is left at the next light,” she said.

“Got it,” he replied. She noted ruefully that he didn’t even bother to turn on his flicker.

___

Fortunately they made it to Mondega Ward without incident, and Judy was able to use the silence of the drive to study her omni-tool. She hummed pensively as if reviewing her notes from the crime scene—but, she suspected, he probably knew what she was really up to.

_Nick Wilde. Species: Fox. Appointed Spectre in 1-27-2182. Combat and field specialties include night vision, pistols, sniper rifles, and tactical stealth._

There were also a few news media shots of him emerging from nightclubs in ridiculous, oversized sunglasses—more often than not with a prisoner in tow.  Judy flicked back and forth between two of them, noting a smaller, large-eared fox in both shots, trailing a couple of feet behind. Judy filed that away in her own mental dossier: _Known associates: large-eared little fox guy_.

But that was all she could find. Not exactly surprising; Spectres generally excelled at flying under the radar. Most vexing was that there was nothing to explain why, or how, he’d been recruited. The Spectre ranks were usually closed to anyone but a member of the three Council species (lions, tigers, and bears) with the occasional outside recruitment. It made little sense for the foxes to have one; as far as galactic hierarchy went, they were pretty far down the totem pole—even lower, really, than rabbits.

Judy closed her omni-tool as Nick pulled up to the curb, settling the vehicle onto an empty patch of street. She got out of the car, looking around. The C-Sec tape was still in place, and the street was deserted; a couple of officers stood guard over the crime scene, looking in their direction.

 _Oooh do I ever hope they recognize me_ , she thought. Nick got out of the car, leaning against the roof. She turned her attention back to him.

“Okay, so, let’s lay some ground rules, shall we, Sprouts?” he said.

Judy’s nose twitched. “Sprouts?”

“Well, you said no Carrots.”

“That’s not exactly what I—”

“Rule one,” Nick said, knocking his fist against the roof of the car. “This is Council business, all very confidential—seat of order and government, delicate matters, etcetera etcetera, blah blah blah. Point is: nothing leaves this investigation unless I give the word.”

“That’s a big rule,” she said, apprehension blooming. 

“And you’re a big girl for following it. Rule two: I pick the music.”

“What? Constantly?”

“You look like a Gazelle fan. I don’t want that in my car,” he said.

“Hey, well, I don’t want _myself_ in that death trap but we all make sacrifices,” she responded. Nick smirked condescendingly before holding up three fingers.

“Rule three: tell me what you’re thinking. None of that _hem-hem-hemming_ you pulled with Bogo back there. You got a good idea, spit it out.”

Judy laughed. “Oh, good. So I’m not just the token bunny,” she said. Nick frowned.

“Hrrrm. That sounds suspiciously adorable. Rule four: no being cute. It’s not good for business,” he said. He jerked his head towards the alley. “Let’s go.”

Judy followed him, and sure enough, the two police officers on duty were a bobcat and zebra who regularly gave her hassle. This time, however, they gave her a satisfactory double-take as she passed.

“Bernice. Richard,” she nodded.

“Officer Hopps? Who the hell is this?”

Nick opened his jacket, giving Judy another good look at his holster, and withdrew his wallet.

“Nick Wi—” he began.

“He’s a Spectre!” Judy said, bouncing on the soles of her feet. Nick cocked an eyebrow in her direction before slowly opening his wallet and showing the officers his identification.

“Yeeeah. Like I was saying, before my publicity agent got ahead of herself,” he shook his head at her, but Judy was too busy grinning cheekily at the other officers. “Nick Wilde, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Thanks for keeping the seat warm, but we got this from here.”

Bernice and Richard nervously exchanged glances before Nick jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“We need our space. Get lost,” he said. “Please.”

Grumbling, and shooting wary glances at Judy, the two retreated out past the crime scene tape to the open, and empty, street beyond.

“Sorry about that,” Judy said, lowering her voice. “Just … kind of excited. My first major case and all.”

Nick rolled his eyes.

“You don’t say. Believe it or not, Carrots, sometimes I actually enjoy being the one to wipe the smug look off their faces.” He looked down at the dried blood on the sidewalk.

“The Carrots thing again?” Judy said.

“You didn’t like Sprouts,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and leaning up against the alley wall.

“Next time you look me up, maybe spend more than five minutes researching bunnies on the extranet.”

“You aren’t more-than-five-minutes interesting. We doing this, or not?” he pushed himself off the wall, scuffing the pads of his feet around the blood stain. “Show me what you got.”

Judy breathed in sharply, looking around the crime scene. Everything was as it had been the night before, though Bagheera’s body had been removed by forensics and the trash and detritus further in the alley had clearly been sorted and searched through. She thought about bringing up her omni-tool but figured that would only distract her.

 _You got this, Judes_ , she thought. _It’s all in there_. _Never mind that you haven’t slept in over 24 hours_.

She pointed at the blood pool.

“Lots of blood—over a litre. Bagheera was pretty big, so that would definitely leave him weakened. But not dead. We’d need more blood for him to be dead,” she said. Nick nodded slowly, stepping back to study the stains. A dark smear of blood ran from the congealed pool into the alley, where the body had been found. Judy crouched there next, gesturing to the dirty spot where the body had lain.

“If Bagheera were still bleeding out, we’d see more blood over here, by the body—but it’s practically dry.”

“So Bagheera must’ve been bled and dead already,” Nick said. “Don’t suppose they gave you access to the autopsy report?”

Judy snorted. “Please.”

Nick pulled up his omni-tool, sliding his finger across the display. “It’s yours now. Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.”

Judy’s own omni-tool beeped and she opened up the report, looking through it. She nibbled her lip as she did so, nodding her head to show she was reading it.

“Two stab wounds,” Nick summarized. “To the lower abdomen.”

“Yeah, well, the discolouration of the soft tissue—blood loss was clearly the cause of death,” Judy said. “You know, Detective Lupinsky is a real—”

“Idiot?” Nick offered.

“I was going to go with ‘close-minded individual’.”

“Wow. Do you do eulogies?" Nick stood, dusting off his trousers and closing his omni-tool. "Well, I’d say your theory seems pretty sound. Whoever’s blood this is, it ain’t Bagheera’s.”

He turned to look out of the alley, glancing up and down the street. Judy joined him at the alley entrance and caught Bernice and Richard staring; she gave them an exuberant wave, and they pretended not to notice.

“Where’s the closest transit station?” Nick asked. Judy pointed past the crime tape, to a gap between a convenience store and a boarded-up tax office.

“Wilde—I gotta ask. Why me?” she said. “Did you just want to annoy Lupinsky that badly?”

Nick gave her a strange look, one that Judy wasn’t sure how to read. Maybe it was the length of his snout or the green of his eyes, but she found it difficult to tell what he was thinking.

“You think any of those guys would work with a fox?” he said. “They won’t even work with a rabbit—not even when she’s wearing their blues.”

He sauntered forward, ducking under the crime tape as Judy frowned after him.

 _Ain’t that the truth_ , she sighed, and followed his lead.


	4. Good Cop, Bad Cop

The transit station tracked foot and vehicle traffic through the ward. It revealed very little of interest—a scattering of pedestrians and the typical steady stream of delivery vehicles, cabs, and commuters driving through on their way to other, more significant wards. Interestingly, a C-Sec patrol vehicle had driven through earlier the previous day—an hour or two before Judy’s shift had begun—but the plate scans revealed it only lingered in the wards for a few moments, the officer likely ducking into the convenience store to buy a coffee or a pack of cigarettes.  Nick cross-referenced the case file and determined that a possible witness—the vole Judy had cleared from the street upon discovering the body—had yet to be questioned, so she seemed like the first obvious port of call. 

Nick keyed the vole’s address into his car’s navmap and Judy strapped herself in securely.

“So tell me about this affair of Bagheera’s,” Nick said.

“Hm,” Judy said, blinking her eyes in the dim light of the tunnels. “You want the salacious details or the facts?”

Nick gave her a coy look out of the corner of his eye, one hand on the steering wheel and the other draped across the back of his seat. She resisted the temptation to remind him about “ten and two” and tried to return his look with as much confidence and nonchalance as she could muster.

“Salacious details? From the bunny who blushed at the word 'affair'?” he said.

“Har har,” she said. “What is this anyway—a quiz? You have to have read the headlines.”

“What, Lupinsky never told you foxes can’t read?” His voice was dry as a poison oak rash.

Judy had bookmarked the relevant articles during her research the night before, so it was easy enough to pull them up again.  She blinked at the orange light, clearing her throat.

“Ambassador Aadarsh Bagheera has made headlines on his homeworld as his lifemate, Vamir Manchas, has filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. This follows a report from sensationalist news site _Citadel After Dark_ , which recently published photographs alleging that Bagheera was engaged in an affair with actress and singer Elvira DeWitt. No word yet from the leopard government on whether this will affect Bagheera’s position as an ambassador to the Council,” Judy read.

“Elvira DeWitt? Where do I know that name from?”

“Well, she played at Flux last month—to a sold-out crowd,” Judy said. “It’s no stadium venue but she’s definitely an up-and-comer.”

“Oh, yeah. She wasn’t bad,” Nick said. Judy leaned forward in her seat.

“You got in? Bernice couldn’t get in and she’s dating one of the waitresses.”

He cast her a knowing smile. “Spectre privileges, sweetheart.”

“I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to use them for,” Judy said.

“Well, how about next time I take you with me and we’ll keep it our little secret?”

The car coast to a stop outside the Rodentia Ward, where the vole lived. The street was more brightly-lit than Montega Ward, which was, like many of the wards, dimly lit to accommodate nocturnal species. Judy had grown accustomed to the poor lighting after working—and living—in it for four months; she couldn’t afford Presidium rent on her salary, and the artificial sunshine in her small apartment left something to be desired (though logically she shouldn’t be able to tell the difference—she just could. It just didn’t feel right).

The street was surprisingly narrow as it jutted up against a sharp wall with rounded decorative features. Judy carefully watched her feet as rodents, opting against the environmental suits, scurried underfoot before disappearing into appropriately-shaped and sized holes, into the Rodentia Ward within.

Nick squinted in the brighter lights and she nudged him with her elbow, gesturing to a larger door further down the wall.

Inside there was a reception desk, and Judy had to stand on tiptoes to see over the ledge. A glass window looked down onto a platform filled with tiny cubicles, like a model version of the C-Sec offices she worked at—only populated with tiny rodents, dressed in blues.

The receptionist, a petite mouse slurping noisily from a Frappuccino, looked across at Judy’s eyes, just barely cresting the desktop. Nick, a couple heads taller, leaned more comfortably against the desk—doing nothing to hide his amused smile.

“Hey there—Officer Judy Hopps, C-Sec. How ya doing today?” Judy said, her long-practiced, rarely-produced cop patter falling a little short as she strained on tip toes. The receptionist put down her Frap and hit a key on her console; behind Nick and Judy, a faint buzzing noise sounded as their ID’s were scanned.

“Officer Clawhauser called ahead. Petunia Shrubs is in; an officer can escort her to an interrogation room if you like,” the mouse said.  Judy nodded her thanks and, after the mouse promised they'd be shown in shortly, she and Nick turned their backs to the cubicles, leaning against the desktop.

“Interrogation room. No need to terrify her to death,” Judy muttered.

“I think it’s probably slightly less terrifying than showing up at her house,” Nick said. He buckled at the waist, leaning down to doff an imaginary hat to an imaginary rodent. “Ma’am, we’re here to investigate a murder. Mind if we come inside?”

He mimed trying to shove his toe through the front door. “Ma’am, may I remind you that impeding an officer is a criminal offense.”

Judy laughed into her paw, glancing over her shoulder at the little cubicles. Officers passed by at eye-level, from tiny mouses to strong-legged gerbils to the occasional bulking guinea pig. Nick followed her gaze.

“If you were just a wee bit smaller, you could run this town,” Nick said.

“Maybe I like being a small fry in a big pond,” Judy said. “Maybe I like the challenge.”

“Maybe you’re a sucker,” he replied.

A door off the waiting room swung open, pushed by a rotund lemming in uniform. He gestured for them to follow him into the room beyond, where a standard-sized table and chairs were set up; one of the chairs had a booster seat that would allow Judy to sit in it comfortably. On the far side of the room was a one-way glass, and two other doors.

Judy hoisted herself into the booster seat, but Nick simply leaned up against the far wall.

“Ms. Shrubs will be with you shortly,” the lemming said, and he disappeared through the door nearest the glass.

Judy folded her hands against one another as she sat, a pleasant, non-threatening expression plastered on her face. Her feet kicked in the air beneath her, and she became increasingly aware of Nick watching her.

“Maybe you should stand, Carrots,” he said. “Remember what I said about being cute?”

Judy glanced beneath the table at her swinging feet, hanging above the ground. She took a breath and stood in the chair, instead.

“Better?”

“Uh huh. And yet somehow I find myself disappointed.”

The far door swung open, and Judy realized that Nick had positioned himself against it so that he would be the first thing Ms. Shrubs saw when she came through it. She was no longer wearing her environmental suit—instead, she was a long-snouted vole, in her early forties, in a tapered pant suit. Her sandy hair was coiled in a style more commonly seen on deer, and her fingers—which she wrung together when she found herself standing in Nick’s shadow—were bedecked in fine jewellery.

Nick loomed over Ms. Shrubs for a moment as an officer shut the door behind her—then he smiled, gesturing towards an empty chair.

“Take a seat, ma’am. Let me know if you’d like a boost,” he said.

Ms. Shrubs gave his brown paws a startled look before she hastily scurried towards the table. A set of small stairs scaled the side, and she hurried up them, coming out on to the desk.  When she saw Judy, her face relaxed noticeably.

“Oh, it’s you,” Ms. Shrubs said.

“Officer Judy Hopps, ma’am. And this is Nick Wilde—a Spectre,” Judy said. The vole gave Nick another startled look, and he stepped forward to lean against the desk.

“Well, I don’t know how I can help, officer. I heard about the murder on the news this morning, but I didn't see anything suspicious,” she said. Judy flicked her wrist, bringing up her omni-tool, and glanced through her notes from the night before.

“You were walking on foot, ma’am—do you mind telling me what business brought you to that ward?”

The vole shrugged.

“I like to walk sometimes—you know, in the suit. Montega Ward is quiet. I can answer calls, do some work—it helps me think,” she said.

“I understand, ma’am,” Judy said, giving her a smile. The vole relaxed.

“Transit station says you were there for almost an hour,” Nick said, and the vole tensed up immediately. Judy snuck a look at Nick’s face, flexing her paws under the table.

_Are we … good-cop bad-cop?_ She'd been trying to do a good-cop bad-cop routine ever since she arrived at C-Sec. Judy’s bucket list was becoming steadily smaller since the night before.

“So?” Shrubs asked.

“So my forensics report says our victim died between seven and eight—about the time you would have been in the area,” Nick said. Judy glanced down at her omni-tool, frowning. Great—yet another report she hadn’t been given. Nick was looming over the vole, scrutinizing her with the gaze of a shrewd predator—but his hand gently swiped at his omni-tool, and she felt a faint vibration in her wrist; he’d forwarded her the report.

“Like I said, I was making calls—I didn’t notice anything,” Shrubs said, but there was a twitch in her tail that made Judy cock a brow.

“You were so busy you didn’t notice a murder?” Nick scoffed.

“Excuse me, Spectre, but my line of work requires careful attention,” Shrubs said, turning her nose in the air. Judy made a couple of notes on her omni-tool.

“And what line of work would that be?” she asked.

“Media consulting,” Shrubs replied.

Judy shuffled a link towards Nick’s omni-tool. His own wrist buzzed faintly and he glanced at it, a smirk spreading almost imperceptibly across his lips.

“ _Citadel After Dark_?” Nick said.

“You’re a journalist, Ms. Shrubs! Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Judy asked, leaning over the table, giving the vole an enthusiastic smile. Shrubs recoiled from both of them, a look on her face that if Judy was forced to guess, was a mix of defensiveness and preening—but it came out looking more like indigestion. 

“Editor, actually,” she said, her expression frozen in place, ready to morph at a moment’s notice as her eyes twitched back and forth between the two of them.

“So would you say you’re _directly_ responsible for the harassment of the murder victim in the weeks leading up to his death?” Nick asked. But before Shrubs could steel herself in outrage, Judy jumped in:

“Wilde, please—she’s a rodent of integrity. We need her,” Judy said.

“Integrity? Hopps, she’s a parasite!”

“Merely unconventional! People say the same thing about us,” Judy said. She leaned forward, fixing her gaze onto Shrubs.

“Petunia—may I call you Petunia? You must have seen something. Otherwise why would you have been there? This is your life—it's in your blood: hunting a story with instincts as fierce as any predator. Those instincts couldn't have been wrong.”

The vole tore her gaze away from Nick and looked at Judy with a trembling anticipation.

“Whoever killed Ambassador Bagheera is still out there. If you saw something—well, you might have been seen right back.”

Nick snorted. “If she dies because she refuses our protection—I’ll laugh tomorrow, let me tell you.” He turned, his arm folded across his chest, as if the very thought of Bagheera’s murderers made him sick with anger.

The vole’s eyes were wide, now, though she tried to hide it. She fiddled with the cuffs of her suit jacket.

“Whatever your story is—it's going to be powerful. But you can’t publish until these murderers are caught. Surely you can see that?” Judy said.

“Why not?” Shrubs demanded. “The people have a right to know.”

“Of course they do! And I know that you don’t fear for your own safety—don’t fear that they might come after _you_ to silence _you_ ,” Judy said. “But think about your writers. Your staff. Once you’re dead, they’ll be next. You care about _them_ , don’t you?”

The vole had begun squeaking quietly to herself—Judy wasn’t even sure she was aware of it. She glanced back and forth between the two of them, licking her lips and swallowing repeatedly.

“But I barely saw anything!” she protested.

 Nick turned to look at Judy, who shook her head sadly.

“Think those monsters care about that?” Nick asked. “They’ve killed once—they’re not afraid to do it again. And unless you tell us what you know, they’ll get the chance to.”

Shrubs reached out, and the baubles on her fingers shook.

 

\---

 

Back in the car, Judy buckled herself in and tried to get into the C-Sec network. She’d left the interrogation room glowing with the thrill of the new information, but when she’d tried to access her files so she could put it to work, she’d hit a block.

“A rodent of integrity!” Nick said, shaking his head. “Carrots, I’m beginning to love watching you work. Poor girl never knew what—whatsa matter?”

“I’m still not getting any of the forensics reports!” she said, screwing her brow. “And now I can’t even get access to the feeds we need.” She kicked the dash in frustration.

“Hey, hey! Take it easy. Ol’ Juniper isn’t to blame,” he said. Nick leaned over to give the dashboard an affection pat, and just as Judy was about to say something sarcastic, he suddenly pulled himself out of his seat and into the passenger side next to her.

“Uh,” she said, but he peered down at the holographic interface active on her wrist.

“Lemme see,” he said.  She held out her omni-tool and he took her arm in his paws, steadying the display as he flicked through the screens.

His face inches from hers, she could make out a small scar behind his right ear—a line of black skin in the middle of his red-brown fur, almost like a beauty mark. Her nose twitched subconsciously; he smelled … weird. Not unpleasant, exactly—just different. Not even—and she was surprised to realize this—alien. Something about him smelled familiar. She leaned forward slightly.

But he released her arm and returned to his side of the car. And for a moment they sat in silence. Judy wondered if she’d offended him. Maybe he could tell she’d been sniffing? But then, maybe he shouldn’t have gotten in her space if he didn’t want—

“Maybe this was a mistake,” he said.

Judy heard her omni-tool extinguish with a faint chirp as it went inactive. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Look, I—maybe it’s just a glitch in the system. If we call Clawhauser, he can get it worked out,” she said. “I’m not gonna drag you down. I promise.”

Nick looked at her, his brow twisted in an expression Judy didn’t recognize.

“I don’t think I can return the favour,” he said.

“I don’t—what do you mean?”

“I mean—” he stopped, staring through his windshield. Judy tried to follow his gaze but it seemed to be fixed on some distant point on the horizon, souring his expression. He reached forward and started the car.

“Nevermind. Call your Claw—what’s-it. Ask him to patch you in,” he said. “Tell him we’ve got a lead to follow.”  


	5. Selfies

Back in Montega Ward, the press had arrived. Reporters, flanked by camera drones and virtual intelligence assistants, pressed up against the security tape—as far as Bernice would allow. Judy leaned against the scuff on the side of Nick’s car—old Juniper, as he’d said—tapping her foot irritably as she waited on hold. 

Well—“on hold” wasn’t an entirely accurate description. C-Sec didn’t have pop sensation Gazelle as hold music, so Clawhauser had decided to provide it himself.

“ _S.O.S. she’s in disguise, there’s a she-wolf in disguise, coming out, coming out, comin—“_

“Clawhauser.”

“ _There’s a she-wolf in the closet_ —“

“Clawhauser!”

“Almost got it, Judy! _Open up and_ —“

 Judy rolled her eyes and turned to look over the hood of the car. Behind her, Nick was stalking the streets with wide, exaggerated steps. Remembering her research from the night before, it looked like he was pacing out the field of view of the convenience store’s security camera. Reporters called to him from beyond the tape and he shrugged off their attentions like buzzing gnats.

“Okay, just accessing your file now,” Clawhauser said. “Aaand it looks like—huh, you’re right. You _haven’t_ been getting the forensic reports.”

Judy’s paws flexed and she tried to calm the anxious tension coiling in the balls of her feet. When she spoke, it was with a carefully controlled tone—an amazing feat for anyone who knew her.

“Yeah, I got that much. Can you send them to me?”

“I should be able to, just—yeah, there we go. Someone put a lock on the case file. Must’ve been a mistake?”

A notification popped up on her holographic display as the reports came in.

“Must’ve been,” she said—but she remembered the look on Nick’s face.

“So … are you really working with a _Spectre_?” Clawhauser asked, his voice suddenly hushed. She turned again, and this time Nick looked lost in thought, studying his own omni-tool.

She’d only ever seen one Spectre before, back when she was still in Academy training. The lioness had come to speak to her class—eyes golden and fierce like a fiery beacon—and talked about the importance of respecting Spectre authority. She’d even done a combat demonstration for the raw recruits, which at the time had been gussied up like training but, in retrospect, had probably been more of a warning. The Spectre had used her biotics to throw a combat dummy over ten metres into the air before shredding it with her assault rifle. When the dummy hit the ground, the bullet wounds were still smoking.

In spite of her combat prowess, or perhaps even because of it, the lioness had seemed noble, calm, composed—deadly, but slow to anger. It was easy to believe that the Council would trust her with life-or-death decisions—that it was her, and not Judy, who could be considered above the law.

Nick didn’t seem like any of those things. He oozed confidence but, thinking back to their last conversation, she wondered if it wasn’t all just for show. Spectres supposedly had the power to circumvent the typical bureaucratic hoop-jumping required of C-Sec officers, and yet there he was, insisting that Judy get a warrant for the convenience store security cameras. The cops had attempted to seize them the night before but, since the footage didn’t record the actual scene of the crime, it was considered within the store owner’s rights to refuse them access to the files.

  _Council doesn’t want this attracting any more attention that it already has_ , Nick had said. _We should do this by the book—your way, not mine_.

“Judy?” Clawhauser asked.

“Uh, yes—yes, sorry, Clawhauser,” she sighed. Nick turned to look at her and, catching her gaze, shrugged in exaggerated pantomime.  “Yes, I’m really working with a Spectre.”

“OMG,” Clawhauser said—or Judy thought that’s what he said, anyway, because it came out like “Ahmuhguh”—“What’s it like? Is it dangerous? Do you take turns exchanging one liners while apprehending the suspects? Have you fired your gun yet? Is there—“ Clawhauser dropped his voice to a hushed, sensationalist whisper. “— _romantic tension_?”

“What? No. Clawhauser, we’re different species,” Judy said, cupping her omni-tool to her face as if the line of reporters could hear her from all the way across the street.

“You are just the cute—” He coughed, catching himself. “ _Funniest_ little thing. You’re in Citadel space, Judy—that’s never stopped anyone.”

“Everything sorted? Cause I’m not paying you to stand around looking pretty," came a voice over Judy's shoulder.  Nick had given up on elaborate gesturing and returned to the car. Judy felt the fur on her cheeks bristling in embarrassment. 

_Oh for crying out—_ Judy quickly drew a paw over her face to smooth down her coat, breathing deeply.

“You’re paying me?” she said, trying to sound as dry and careless as the Spectre.

“No, I distinctly said I’m _not_ ,” he said. “All the benefits, none of the responsibilities.”

“I KNEW IT!" Clawhauser's voice crackled over the omni-tool. "You are totes flirting! When they sell the movie rights to your life please please _please_ be sure to mention me. I wanna be played by Curt McChisel. He’s a puma but they can do a lot with make-up.”

“Look, I have to go. Send me that warrant,” she said, turning her back to Nick in an effort to stifle the sound of Clawhauser's voice. 

“Take selfies! Get his autograph for me!” Clawhauser squeaked before she hastily cut the connection.  Judy avoided Nick’s gaze, turning to look at the reporters as if she might recognize one of them. Bernice’s body language suggested that she was almost at the end of her shift—or, at least, that she hoped she was.

“So what’s the news?” Nick asked.

As if on cue, both of their wrists chimed faintly. Judy took the opportunity to bury herself in the holographic display, skimming through the new report. The orange glow revealed a lab report for the blood found on the sidewalk, which was—

“YES,” Judy said, launching herself skyward with an exuberant hop. “Yes! YES! Suck it, Lupinsky!”

“Gesundheit,” Nick said. His eyes skimmed over the display before he suddenly laughed. “What the hell? What does this even mean?”

Judy calmed herself, brushing back her ears and focussing more attentively on the report.

“The blood found at the scene was _not_ Bagheera’s,” Judy said, her voice bubbling like a spritzy cocktail. But her brow furrowed: “It’s been identified as belonging to Victor Van Bleets, a goat and bakery-owner—who was reported missing ... three months ago?”

“Any idea what to make of that?”

“Uh. No,” she admitted. The missing mammal case for Bleets belonged to a large polar bear that Judy was not exactly on good terms with; she’d need to get the case file before they could get much more info. She put in a request for it, but somehow she didn’t think she’d be seeing it without a few follow-up calls and some more pleading with Clawhauser.

Nick hummed pensively, tapping his fingers against his jawline. He opened his mouth with a sharp intake of breath, paused—and then closed it again.

“Let’s put it on the back-burner for now. Claw-whosits send you that warrant?”

There was another notification on her wrist, and Judy opened the attachment.

“Just did,” she said.

“Then lead the way.”

 

\---

 

The convenience store employed a buffalo; he was young—maybe Judy's age—and the fur on his head was so thick and matted it looked like he was wearing a helmet. He _did_ wear a visor, for which he’d parted the great mass of hair so that his left eye could peep out through it. Judy found herself wanting to snap her fingers in front of his watery blue gaze; she had a sneaking suspicion he was paying more attention to his visor than to her, and judging by the crusty nature of the convenience store, she didn't want to think too hard about what he might be looking at.

“Lifetime _Furnax_ membership,” Nick muttered into her ear, clearly sharing her train of thought.      

Judy shuddered. The shop was dimly-lit and stocked assorted sundry which _might_ be considered “conveniences”—such as charging packs, shoddy omni-tool upgrades, gift cards, and a print collection of _Furnax_ , the salacious magazine in question.

“Excuse me, Mister—” she leaned forward, studying the faded name tag attached to his shirt. “Sydney? I really need you to focus, here.”

The buffalo, Sydney, rolled his head from side to side. Judy noticed that one of his horns seemed to have a fried cheese snack looped around it.

“Look, officer—my boss told me I couldn’t do nothing for you unless you had a warrant,” Sydney said. He drew a deep breath, wiping his nose along the sleeve of his shirt. Judy caught herself cringing involuntarily before she could readjust her features into something more in line with professionalism.

Nick had been looking over a stack of cheap sunglasses; he tried on a pair with bright pink frames that shrieked against the colour of his fur, the price tag dangling from one of the arms.

“We have a warrant, Sydney. Carrots, show the nice mammal our warrant,” he said. Judy held up her arm, brandishing her omni-tool.

“I can send it to your terminal—and your boss’s, too, if you like,” Judy said.

“Uh …” Sydney said.

 

Five minutes later, she and Nick were in the back of the shop, looking through the video records. Sydney claimed the files were deleted every night, but the warrant allowed them to access the hard-drive and recover the files before the data could be properly over-written. Judy noticed that Nick—as comfortable as he might seem in the less-than-savoury environment—still recoiled away from the walls, which looked suspiciously … sticky.

He leaned over her shoulder, his snout inches from the screen.

“Hey, you mind?” she said. “You’re blocking my view.”

“Enh, take it up with my manager, Carrots,” he said. He reached over her shoulder and slid his finger across the interface, looking for the right time stamp.

“How about I call you whatever it is foxes eat?” she said.

“I dunno. Peanut Butter Sandwiches sounds like a bit of a mouthful,” he said. His finger halted on the display, then slid backwards. “There.”

The surveillance footage played forward. The camera was positioned towards the front of the store, at the register. Sydney was visible in frame carefully shaking each of the charge packs and holding them up to his ear—Judy had no idea what he was doing and suspected, really, that neither did he. The edge of the street beyond was just visible through the window, set to dim opacity as it was.

Nothing happened for a few minutes. Impatiently, Judy prodded the display, fast-forwarding through the evening. Sydney wandered in and out of frame as he continued his inventory of the store. Eventually he took a seat at the counter and sat still—no doubt lost in the delights of his visor.

“Hold it!” Nick said. Judy’s finger froze on the display.

Through the window, a mass effect field could be seen warping the ground beneath as a car touched down on the street outside. It was black, and a radioactive violet underglow—in violation of Citadel by-laws—illuminated the sidewalk.

“That’s the car Shrubs described,” Nick said. He sounded vaguely uncomfortable, and Judy shot him a look out of the corner of her eye.

"Recognize it?" she asked, but he shook his head, and she returned her attention to the video. 

As the car touched down on the street outside, the license plate came into view, just visible through the window.

Judy tapped the number into her omni-tool.

“Four-nine-oh-oh-oh …“ she paused. Sydney’s bulbous head was blocking the rest of the plate. She glanced down and pulled up her notes from the transit station.

“Number doesn’t match any of the transit records,” she said. “Whoever they are, they either avoided a scan or used a fraudulent ID.”

Nick's eyebrows arched in annoyance. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like our hirsute friend is gonna move out of the way anytime soon.”

Judy’s fingers twitched above the display, scrolling backwards and forwards through time. Eventually the car lifted off again, without so much as a glance from Sydney.

“Guess  _Furnax_ had a good selection of fine frisky oxen that night,” Nick said.

Judy downloaded the video to her C-Sec file and pushed away from the interface, turning to stare blankly at the nearby wall. Nick cocked a brow at her.

“What if …” she tapped a hooked finger across the bridge of her nose, her face furrowed in deep thought. When she hesitated, Nick gave a low growl.

“Rule number three, Carrots. What was it?”

She looked up at him, “Underglows are banned. Messes up the maintenance readings at street level,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a couple of shops that’d do it, but even if we questioned all of them they wouldn’t reveal their clients.”

“Ah, the unsavoury criminal element. What law won’t they break?”

“But we _can_ get access to the maintenance readings,” Judy said.

The smile that spread across Nick’s face was slow, but surprisingly warm.

“Aw, Carrots,” he said. “I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

Judy beamed at him.

“Because I sure as heck don’t want to be the one who has to sift through all that data,” he said.  Judy rolled her eyes, studying him for a moment before—

_Oh, could it be that easy?_ she thought, before supposing there was only one way to find out. She leaned forward in her seat.

“Neither will I. But we need a bribe,” she said.  Nick looked surprised.

“Junior Officer Hopps is capable of bribery?” he asked. “What a dark, dark world we live in. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

She reached forward and wrapped her arm around Nick’s neck, drawing him close.

“Uh, this is somehow not the reaction I was expecting?” Nick said. His shoulders were tense under the contact. “Carrots? Carrots. What are you doing?”

Judy lifted her other arm, activating her omni-tool’s photographic feature, and pushed her cheek up against his.

“Big smile, Spectre,” she said. 

 

They emerged from the convenience store, Nick rubbing his cheek as if she’d dealt him a blow. The reporters throbbed at the line behind them, invigorated by their reappearance, and Nick threw a rude hand gesture in their direction. Judy swiped through a couple of the selfies until she found the one where Nick looked the least paralyzed in fear. She sent it to Clawhauser. 

He called her almost instantly.

“Are you in love?!” Clawhauser asked. “Because I am. Tell me when you start serializing your adventures because I will subscribe to every single chapter.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have a starring role?” Judy asked, looking up to grin cheekily at Nick. The gasp on the other end of the line drew itself out into a squeak, like air escaping from a party balloon.

“Tell me what I must do and I will do it,” Clawhauser said.

Finally, Nick returned Judy’s grin.


	6. Make 'em Squirm

The bar was nicer than Judy had expected—not exactly red velvet and caviar, but not a dive, either. The lioness bartender poured her drinks with a careful hand and there was a virtual intelligence to monitor the dance floor and make sure no one got up to anything untoward—at least, non-consensually so. And there had even been a modest line-up outside, but the bouncer waved Nick and Judy through after an exchange between him and Nick that might have been a handshake, or might have been a bribe; Judy didn’t look too closely.

Once Judy had placed the call to Clawhauser it simply became a matter of waiting—well, not _entirely_ , for there was Elvira DeWitt left to question and Judy was eager to pay the songstress a visit. But it had grown late, and Nick had insisted they’d worked enough for the day and had somehow managed to convince Judy to come out for a drink before she called it a night.

_Think, Judy—what did your third grade teacher always say about peer pressure? Especially when you’re low on sleep?_ Judy had thought. _But … maybe this is actually kind of exhilarating and I’m not quite ready to call it a night_ just _yet._

Nick found them a seat in a dimly-lit corner of the upper lounge while Judy ordered two drinks—one of the fancy, noxiously-blue cocktails with the printed paper umbrella for Nick, and an apple cider for herself (she’d been about to order a carrot cider but had thought better of it).

“I’ll get the next round,” Nick promised when she arrived with their drinks. Judy passed him his cocktail, waving her paw.

“Please. I’ve seen your car. At least C-Sec officers get a salary,” she said. Nick nodded sadly as he swirled his drink in its tall glass.

“It’s true. Spectrehood ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, Carrots. Stay in school,” he said.  Judy took a swig of her cider and leaned in, resting her chin against the palm of her upturned paw. She tried to give him her most winning smile.

“Sooo is this a good time to ask about that?” she asked. Nick squinted into his glass, attempting to spear a piece of floating fruit with his paper umbrella.

“What, school? I hear it’s very educational.”

Judy, with her mouth full of cider, made a disgruntled noise. Nick put down his drink.

“The salary is practically non-existent. The Council gives me an allowance for, you know, special operations, but otherwise I’m self-financed. It’s not a real job,” he said, before carefully returning to his drink. He fished out a blueberry and chewed it thoughtfully. “But sometimes, when you’re the little guy … it pays to have carte blanche to do whatever you want.”

“Wait, what does that mean?”

“It means—hey, speak of the devil!” Nick said, gesturing over Judy’s shoulder. She turned and saw a male fennec fox, ears like satellite dishes, emerging from a back room. The purple velvet curtains swayed behind him as he looked over and made eye contact with Nick.

The fennec fox’s expression remained neutral as he approached. Judy realized that it was the same fox from the media shots she’d seen, and she prepared to update the _Known Associates_ section of her mental file on Nick Wilde.

“Finnick, want you to meet Officer Carrots,” Nick said, gesturing towards Judy. She resisted the temptation to slam her head into the table—or slam Nick’s, for that matter—and offered her paw.

“Officer Judy Hopps. C-Sec,” she said.

Finnick looked her up and down as if her paw were a dead fish.

“Not sure what other kind of officer you’d be,” he said, with a voice as dense as a gravity well. Nick slid down a seat at the table and Finnick hopped into the newly-vacated spot, staring with distaste at Nick’s neon-coloured drink.

“This is a social call, Finn. Pleasure only. Carrots and I have had a long day,” Nick said, before slurping his drink with relish. Finnick looked over at Judy.

“Profitable one, I hope,” he said.

“Not today, old pall. Duty called,” Nick said. Finnick stared pointedly at the glass in Nick’s hand, and the larger fox shrugged. “Judy’s treat.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Finnick said, and he turned and gave Judy a smile as slick and suave as any of Nick’s. The fennec snapped his fingers, and a waitress appeared with a shot of bourbon.

“Put it on her tab,” Finnick said. Judy opened her mouth to protest but, after so many hours without sleep, she figured it wasn’t worth the hassle. Judy begrudgingly acknowledged the charge on her omni-tool and wondered, for a brief moment, whether she might be able to expense it once the investigation was over. She imagined the look on Chief Bogo’s face when she submitted the expense report for reimbursement.

“To Carrots!” Nick said, raising his glass. Finnick tipped his bourbon, the ice clinking towards her. Then, in unison, they threw their heads back, downing their drinks in one go.

“You working with Nick, huh?” Finnick said, smacking his lips. “Bet you thought it wouldn’t be like this.”

Nick smirked, crunching on an ice cube and winking at Judy when she glanced his way.

“Well …” Judy hesitated just long enough for Finnick to laugh loudly into his empty glass.  Out on the dance floor, the DJ kicked in with a loud, deep bass, and Nick had to lean in over the table to be heard.

“Carrots here is a rookie,” Nick said. “Fresh out of the C-Sec oven.”

“That explains why you’re drinking with two foxes,” Finnick said.

Judy looked between the two of them as they chewed happily on their ice. Neither of them looked eager to pick up the next round—but then, they weren’t pestering her for another drink, either. They were clearly used to being happy with one drink.

And they were clearly used to dominating the conversation. Judy turned, catching a waitress’s attention, and flagged her down.

“Three shots of Bunnyburrow Bourbon and carrot juice,” Judy said. Over the music, it was unlikely either of the foxes could hear her order—but they saw her hold up three fingers, and when she turned back, they were exchanging a surprised look.

She smiled warmly at them and, when the shots arrived a moment later, distributed them across the table.

“Break it down for me, fellas,” she said. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“Another bribe!” Nick shouted above the thumping music, and held up the drink against the dim bar lights. Finnick elbowed him.

“Don’t be a rude-ass fox and drink your damn liquor,” he said, then turned to Judy. He pulled his chair closer to hers so he could be heard over the music, for his voice rumbled as much as the bass.

“Suppose you don’t get much respect at the office, huh? That sound right?” Finnick asked. Judy looked over at Nick, who was carefully sniffing the contents of the shot glass, but his ears were perked.

“Nailed it,” Judy said.

“So here’s how it goes, right? We each are working away like damn fools on our happy little worlds, sending up probes and shit, discovering—I don’t know. Rockets. Whatever. Then we get up to space and the damn place is already crowded to shit.”

Nick lapped carefully at the shot glass and winced. Finnick rolled his eyes and turned back to Judy.

“Not only that, but everything’s already been planned out by alpha predators. You got a galaxy that’s ninety percent punk-ass vegetarian—no offense—and every single decision is made by fancy-ass lions, tigers, and bears. And predators only think one way: bigger is better. We little guys—we don’t matter. But they can get behind big prey species. Rhinos, elephants—they big as shit. Predators understand that.”

“Holy hell, Finnick, are you delivering your manifesto over there?” Nick asked. “You’re boring Carrots to death.”

“I am educating her, fool!” Finnick snapped. “She ain’t some damn idiot like you!”

“So foxes get no respect because you’re small?” Judy asked, pushing her untouched shot towards Finnick. He rolled his head towards Nick, giving him the smuggest _I-told-you-so_ face Judy had ever seen.

“That’s the start of it, sure. But then—we also, uh, got a loose understanding of the law, you know what I’m saying?”

“We _understand_ it just fine,” Nick said. Finnick suddenly stood in his chair, smacking one open paw against the table.

“We’re a damn generous people. You feel me, Hopps? On our planet we just _share_ shit. How are we to know that other species don’t like that?” Judy had to resist the temptation to laugh—somehow she didn’t think that would be respectful. But she knew what he meant: on the bunny homeworld, society was structured on a heavy taxation system that ensured everyone got access to most fundamental services. Here on the Citadel, things didn’t work that way—and bunnies found it strange and alienating.  And armadillos, she’d heard, ascribed to a system of indentured servitude—which was believed to be the reason why they hadn’t yet earned an embassy on the Citadel, as the Council races were adamantly against slavery.

Back on her planet they’d had a saying: "different strokes for different folks." On the Citadel, it was more "our way or go back to your planet and stay there." Not quite as friendly—nor as catchy. 

“Right, so—prejudice against foxes,” Judy said. “Means prejudice against Wilde, even though he’s a Spectre.”

“ _Especially_ ‘cause he’s a Spectre,” Finnick said, downing the second shot. “Little guy with power? Ooooh, that makes some folks squirm.”

“And prejudice against me, because I’m small _and_ prey,” Judy said.

“That’s right,” Finnick nodded.

“And now prejudice against both of us, because we’re—“

“Working together,” Nick said, sporting a dry smile. 

“And this relates to the source of your income … how?” Judy asked. Nick had finally gone in for the plunge before Finnick could steal his drink, downing the shot in one bold move. Suddenly he coughed, choking on the grassy liquor, and Finnick slapped him on the back.

“Maybe a story for another time, Hopps,” the fennec said. “You tired poor ol’ Nick out.”

Judy sighed, drumming her fingers against the table. She glanced down at the time on her omni-tool, but her vision was beginning to blur. She needed sleep, or she’d collapse before the investigation was even over.

“All right, well, I’m heading home,” Judy said. “It was nice meeting you, Finnick.”

“You leaving?” Nick asked, stifling a cough and rising out of his seat. “I’ll take you home.”

“Naw, I need to clear my head. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Judy said.

"Take it easy out there, Hopps," Finnick said. "Nick likes you—I can tell."   
  
The two foxes began to argue but, beneath the thrum of the music, Judy couldn't make out what they were saying.

 

As Judy emerged into the circulated air of the Citadel wards, she thought of the lock on her case file that had blocked her from getting the forensic reports. Just a mistake, or was someone sabotaging the investigation? Nick clearly thought that was likely.

_A little guy with power makes some folks squirm_ , she thought. Well—maybe that was what she wanted.  


	7. Spit in the Coffee

The next morning, Judy rolled into C-Sec with three large coffees and a box of a half-dozen fresh glazed doughnuts (and one or two cricket scones, for protein) from Clawhauser’s favourite bakery. He usually arrived at work about fifteen minutes after she did, so she thought she’d have enough time to pour his coffee into his personalized Gazelle mug, setting the scene for continued bribery.  But she was surprised to find the cheetah already at his reception counter, eagerly feasting upon a selection of fine pastries.

Judy faltered when she saw this, but only for a moment; Clawhauser wouldn’t turn down a doughnut no matter how many he’d already received.

“Morning, Clawhauser!” she said, standing on tiptoes to slide the box of confections under his nose.

“Judy, you are just a little dumpling!” Clawhauser said as she wrenched one of the coffees out of the tray and passed it to him, as well. He took the proffered to-go cup, leaning over the edge of his counter as far as his girth would allow.

“And I bet that _Spectre_ thinks so, too,” he said in a stage whisper, his eyes sliding covertly around the reception area. It hardly mattered; if the other cops had taken to ignoring Judy before, they were doing so with a vengeance now. She could practically feel the way she was _not_ being looked at by passing officers, their gazes all obstinately turned in any direction but hers.

“Hah,” Judy said, double-checking the caps on the two remaining coffees. “Just wait until you meet him, Clawhauser—then maybe you won’t be so eager to see your little romance unfold. He’s a little—“

“Darling!" Clawhauser cried, squeezing his cheeks with his paws and gazing dreamily off into the distance. "The word you’re looking for is ‘darling’. I met him this morning!”

“What?” Judy stopped, her hand hovering over the lid of her coffee.

“Yeah, where do you think I got _these_ bad boys from?” he said, gesturing towards the first box of doughnuts as a well-timed crumb slipped from his collar. Judy’s ears perked. She’d assumed that Nick, being a fox, would be a late riser.

 

"Huh. And I was worried about his coffee getting cold." She looked around the mostly empty floor. "Where is he?"

Clawhauser had opened up the second box of doughnuts and was lovingly wiggling his fingers above them like they were rare delicacies and not, in fact, the customary bribe he often received from many a C-Sec officer. He stopped at Judy’s question, however, and looked at her in surprise.

“He left already! Following that lead you asked me to look at yesterday,” Clawhauser said. He picked one of the doughnuts from the box and chewed it rapturously, oblivious to the tense twitch in Judy’s ears.

“He … left? Without me?” Judy asked. There was a brief staccato triplet and Judy realized her foot was busy drilling into the tile of its own accord. She stilled her leg.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Judy—he said he just wanted to let you sleep in,” Clawhauser said, his mouth full. He swallowed. “Presumably because he’s deeply in love with you and just considerate like that.”

The look on Judy’s face must have been as dry as her mouth suddenly felt, for the pleased grin on Clawhauser’s face melted away into muted disappointed. He quickly fiddled with the console on his desk, pulling up his HUD.

“Look, I’ll show you what I showed him. Maybe you can catch up to him?”

Judy came around the counter and hopped up onto Clawhauser’s chair to get a better look at the display. His fingers pulled up a series of data readouts detailing Montega Ward street maintenance. She watched as he applied a few filters, his claw pointing at the relevant information that remained on the screen.             

“This is it—these fluctuations show the underglow. You can track the car through Montega Ward. Goes through a pretty low traffic area for a while.” He slid his finger across the display, summoning more data. “Then it gets lost in the green light district for a bit—by that point it could be anywhere.   _But_ since you’re my favourite little bunny on the force, I checked and I thought I caught it coming out one of the back streets. Pulls into private parking.”

He finished by pulling up a map of the green light district, a blinking light indicating the source of the data fluctuation.

“The Spectre didn’t even look surprised. Figured he must’ve already picked up a lead from somewhere else with his wily Spectre ways,” Clawhauser said. Judy leaned in to the screen, her nose twitching. “Does it mean anything to you?”

It did. It freaking _did_.   _And Nick hadn’t even looked surprised._

For a brief moment she wished he was there—not so that she could catch him before he left without her, but so she could kick him in the knee, twist his ears, and throw her coffee in his smug face. And she even had two coffees.

Because the car had pulled into the rear of a well-situated bar. _The bar they’d gone to the night before_. She recalled the look on his face when they’d seen the violet underglow in the convenience store’s security footage. _Recognize it?_ she’d asked. _No_ , he’d lied.

She opened her omni-tool and furiously keyed up Nick’s contact info. The call connected.

“This is Nick Wilde, Spectre. Don’t leave me a message—I won’t check it. You’ve been warned,” his pre-recorded voice said, followed by a chime. Judy terminated the call, and she realized that Clawhauser was studying her with an expression of tense apprehension.

“Oh my gosh, Judy. You look _furious_ ,” he whispered.

She was, and as her fingers flew across her omni-tool, she had to take a deep breath and collect herself, lest she send Nick a message riddled with typos.

_What the HELL_ , she wrote.

“I need a car,” she said, and her voice felt coiled around her tongue like an adder. Clawhauser turned to his console and began to fill out the requisitions form as her omni-tool buzzed.

_Sleep well?_ Nick responded.

_If you wanted me out of this investigation, why didn’t you just_ —no, Judy thought, and hastily erased her message. That would sound too emotional.

_So I see you’ve found a lead and_ —and Judy erased that, too. Not emotional _enough_. She took a breath, clenching her paw to still the trembling in her fingers, and tried again.

_You are going to wait for me. Then we will compare notes. And if our notes don’t match, we are going to have a very long discussion about the chain of communication_.   _And if you do not wait for me, I’m going to “find” traces of Red Sand at that bar and we’ll have all of C-Sec crawling so far up its air ducts you’ll choke on ‘em._

She sent it and closed her omni-tool, resolving to ignore his notifications if— _when_ —he responded. Sure enough, her omni-tool buzzed almost instantly. She kept her wrist firmly at her side.

“Okay, got you a scooter,” Clawhauser said. Judy closed her eyes, trying to summon the last of her patience. “I’m sorry, Judy, but it’s all I could get! Lupinsky has pretty much the entire squad wrapped up in a drug bust—he’s been real ornery since yesterday, believe me.”

She drew her paw over her face, took another deep breath, and nodded.

“I know. Thank you, Clawhauser. Now—who does that bar belong to?”

\---

 

The bar, it turned out, belonged to a red panda named Leroy Fritz—but a quick social media search confirmed that Leroy Fritz was basically just a face who spent most of his time vacationing on one of the more exotic Lioness colony worlds. The person who really oversaw operations, according to social media, was a polar bear named Greta—but, according to her taxes, she wasn’t self-employed but rather paid by another polar bear named Raymond and a quick search in the database revealed that _he_  was believed to work for a crime boss named Mr. Big.

Judy pulled the scooter up to the green light district and checked her omni-tool. Nick had sent a single response to her last message:

_Aye aye, ma’am._

She shouldn’t have checked it. She’d spent the whole ride over calming herself down—or at least honing her rage into something controlled.

The green light district never really slept, but it was during standard cycle, and many of the bars were closed. The one they’d been to the night before—Mutiny, it was called; the name didn’t do anything to calm Judy’s temper—was dimmed and quiet, and as Judy approached, she saw Nick leaning against the closed door. He smiled when he saw her, spreading his paws with a helpless shrug.

“Come on, don’t look at me like that,” Nick said.

“Last night you and Finnick tell me that I’ve _jeopardized my career_ joining this investigation, and today you leave me in the lurch?” Judy said.

“That’s a gross misrepresentation of my actions.”

“ _You’re_ a gross misrepresentation!” Judy said. She realized her foot was pattering away again and she threw her head back, desperately trying to control the beating of her heart.  When Nick spoke, it was with delicate tones, heavily gilded with condescension.

“Okay, I think we just need to take a deep breath and maybe collect our—”

Judy jabbed a finger into his chest hard enough for it to hurt.

“I am _furious_ and I have every right to be. I’m the only one willing to work with you, you said? Maybe this is why.” She looked into his eyes and hoped that her own contained nothing but napalm and vitriol. “And don’t you _dare_ try to pretend I should be feeling _any differently_ because that’ll only convince me that you’re a narcissist _and_ a selfish two-bit hustler—Council authority be damned.”

Yesterday, the look of surprise on his face might have given Judy some degree of satisfaction—at least she’d startled the over-confident asshattery right out of him. But today, it only made her feel alone. Nick had never respected her—had never _really_ wanted to work with her. She was just the butt of yet another cosmic joke.

During Judy’s tirade, Nick had retreated into a shell of tension located somewhere between his shoulders—now, he slowly unfurled himself again, his arms going limp at this sides.      

“Look, Ca—Judy. Officer Hopps. It’s not like that—really,” he said. She cocked an eyebrow at him, her lips pursed. “No, it’s true. I had my _suspicions_ when I saw the car but I really didn’t know until this morning. The guy—”

“Mr. Big,” Judy said, and Nick stopped, his mouth briefly agape. This time it _did_ give her some satisfaction.

“Uh, yeah. Mr. Big,” Nick said, giving her an appraising look. “I’ve run into him before. He, uh, isn’t exactly a fan of C-Sec.”

“Most criminals aren’t,” she remarked. Nick laughed, scratching the bag of his neck.

“Yeah, well, he and I are … friendly? Maybe not the right word, but—”

“According to C-Sec files, he’s a crime _boss_ ,” Judy said. The sting of her resentment was beginning to fade a little, and she found herself watching Nick’s expression with curiosity.

“And, believe it or not, crime bosses come in handy. It’s not exactly like I have a direct line to Red Sand dealers. Slave rings. The Shadow Broker,” he said, waiting for Judy to react. She rewarded him with a slight twitch of her ears. “In fact, as a Spectre there’s a general understanding that I have an interest in shutting all those things down. That’s the level I operate at. _Daily_. I’m not busting black market arms dealers or street-level narcotics—I’m protecting state secrets. Shutting down major mammal rights violations. Foiling assassinations. That kind of thing. So, yeah, you know—I’ve encountered Mr. Big before and never seen the need to antagonize him.”

“Well he’s kind of a _major suspect_ in our _murder investigation_ , Wilde,” Judy said. “So I don’t care if he’s a regular in your Tuesday poker nights.”

“I know that, Carrots! Just—trust me, all right?” His ears were flattened in exasperation.

Judy snorted derisively. “Well, gee, Slick. I’d sure like to, but—”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, bending down to meet her gaze. Under normal circumstances the sudden contact would have sent Judy reaching for her pistol, but caught unawares as she was she could only blink at him, eyes wide and ears stiff.

“I get it!” he said, giving her shoulders a small shake. “I get it, Judy. You’re smart. You deserve better. Bogo doesn’t appreciate you and you’d be one hell of a cop if he’d just give you a chance. But right now, at this stage in _our_ investigation, I need to talk to Mr. Big alone.”

He released her, and Judy smoothed out the sleeves of her uniform, acutely aware of the way the fur of her cheeks was bristling. She looked away from him, avoiding his gaze.

“So, that’s it. You just want to question him alone?” she asked.

“For now,” Nick said. “If he doesn’t cooperate then—yeah. We’ll try again.”  He gave her a soft smile, all hint of former condescension or antagonism gone.

Judy looked at the street—then at the dimmed signs of Mutiny, then at Nick’s feet—pretty much anywhere to avoid looking at him directly. She scrunched her nose.

“Then … I’ll go question Elvira DeWitt,” she said, risking a glance up at him. He beamed at her.

“Brilliant idea, Carrots. Then we’ll discuss developments over lunch. My treat—I owe you after last night,” he said. Judy allowed herself a small smile.

“And I bought you a coffee,” Judy said. “I was so angry at you I gave it to Lupinsky.”

“Liar,” he said, his voice soft as tissue paper. 

“Well, I spat in it, first.”

“Double liar,” he said. “Cute, though.”

He leaned forward and gave her a little squeeze on the shoulder. She reached up and put her hand on his.

There was a brief moment between them when, surprisingly, even he looked slightly too embarrassed to say anything further, but the connection ended and they both turned away. Judy returned to her scooter, glancing over her shoulder to see him slip inside the bar.

Once he was gone, she got into the scooter, pulled open her omni-tool, and called C-Sec HQ.

“So was it all just a hilarious misunderstanding?” Clawhauser asked.  Judy sneered, running her paw over her ears.

“Not even close. I’m being played like a chump,” she said. She opened a read-out in her display and saw that it had successfully scanned the information she needed from Nick's omni-tool.

“Oh, geez,” Clawhauser said. She could practically hear him wringing his paws in a fit of anxiety.

“I got the frequency, though. So you’re sure you can hack into his omni-tool?”

“Uh, I’m not sure of _anything_ , but I’ve got a friend in cyber-forensics who owes me a favour. Judy, you better be right about this. Eavesdropping on a Spectre is not just, like, a _little_ bad. It’s _really_ bad. Like ‘gets you accused of high treason’ bad.”

“You’ll never be a secret agent with that attitude,” Judy said.

“Now you sound like my grandmother,” he sighed, then put her on hold while he made the connection. Judy settled into the seat of her scooter, turned up the volume on her omni-tool, and waited.


	8. Double Down

Judy’s fingers trilled along the steering wheel at the same pace as her furiously beating heart. An okapi, dressed in black and brilliant eye make-up (far too early to begin her partying—so she must be ending it, instead) walked down the street, and Judy sank into the seat of her scooter to avoid notice.

There was a faint blip on her omni-tool, and suddenly Nick’s voice filled the small space of her scooter. Judy nearly jumped out of her seat, leaning forward to press her face into the orange glow of her display as if she could pull herself right through it and into the conversation.

“—your car was there. You gotta give me something to work with, here,” Nick said. Judy recognized the dry confidence with which he always spoke but there was something else there, too—a desperation, a plea, that left her wondering if it were really Nick’s voice after all.

“I do?” said another voice, high-pitched and sharpened with an accent. It sounded like a rodent, and Judy guessed it was Mr. Big—whose file, small as it was, suggested he was an arctic shrew. “Is this where we test your loyalty? Is this where we see what Nick Wilde is worth?”

“Mr. Big, come on. You know me better than that,” Nick said.

“I do. Unfortunately.” A sigh, which over Judy’s omni-tool sounded faintly like static. “I didn’t kill the cat, Nicky. If that’s what you want to hear.”

Judy’s nose twitched in front of her orange read-out.

“Yes. Great. Fantastic,” Nick said. Was that sarcasm? It was so hard to tell, with his voice as dry as paper kindling.

“So take care of it,” Big said.

“You know, I’m trying—I really am. But C-Sec is actually keeping pretty close tabs on me and—”

“Nicky, Nicky. As a friend who respects and admires your many talents, I have incredible faith in you to do right by me,” Big said.

“And that means a lot to me, sir.”

_Sir?_ Judy thought, a sneer curdling at her lips unbidden. _Oh, I see_.

“But as a businessman I _expect_ to get what I pay for. I have a problem—and you figure out how to deal with it. If that’s good enough for the Council, it’s good enough for me. I want service _with a smile_ , Nicky—” and here the shrew paused expectantly, following it with a chuckle so raw it stung like an onion. “That’s better. This Bagheera problem is nipping at my heels, Nicky. It’s coming at me from too many angles at once. I need you to prioritize.”

There was a faint beep through the channel—and, after a brief moment, Judy realized it was the sound of an omni-tool shuffling data towards Nick. Judy held her breath, her free paw suddenly darting for the disconnect button. If Nick checked his omni-tool, he might notice that it was currently transmitting; she should sever the connection before it could give her away. But eavesdropping wouldn’t do her much good unless she could figure out Mr. Big’s next course of action.

Judy’s hesitance paid off, for in the next moment she heard something that made her ears twitch like antennae.

“Elvira DeWitt?” Nick said, and his own voice suggested he was suddenly very, very displeased.

“She’s one of mine—a singer. And, we think, one of the last to see the ambassador alive. We need her taken care of,” Big said, and there his tinny squeak held a faint growl, as if laced with a whiff of arsenic.  

Judy’s blood turned to white water in her veins. Her finger, poised as it was over the disconnect, slammed into the HUD and then shot right through it, jamming into her wrist. The connection severed, she defaulted back to communication with C-Sec.

“Did you hear that, Clawhauser?” she asked, wrenching the scooter into gear and pulling out into traffic. Behind her, she heard the angry buzz of a kinetic stabilizer as a car screeched to a halt.

“I heard it, Judy. It sure sounded … not good,” Clawhauser said. He said something else but was drowned out by a blast of car horn as she hastily changed lanes, ducking through a maintenance passage below street level.

“No,” Judy said. “Not good.”

If that was an understatement, Judy’s train of thought more than made up for it.  _Stupid, dumb bunny_.  She should’ve questioned Elvira immediately—it should have been the first thing she did. But she let Nick take lead on the investigation, trusting him to guide their course. But he must’ve always suspected Big’s involvement—must’ve always been keeping tabs on her to make sure she didn’t get too close to the truth. Had the Council even ordered the investigation in the first place? Or had Nick always been looking out only for Mr. Big—for his _real_ employer? The one who paid his bills?

_It pays to have carte blanche_ , Nick had said. Judy felt her stomach turn in crushing—what? Revulsion? Disappointment? Betrayal? She’d only known Nick for one day and she hated him for this—and hated herself for letting it happen.

But somewhere buried in the rage a voice nagged at her.

_Something’s missing._

“Back-up will meet you there, Judy,” Clawhauser’s voice silenced her doubts, at least for the moment. “Be careful, okay? He is a trained Spectre. If he gets to you before back-up does—”

“I’ll be ready for him,” Judy said.

\---

Elvira DeWitt’s apartment was in a nicer part of the wards, the streets bright with artificial sunlight. Judy pulled her scooter up to a shuddering halt, barely bothering to throw it into park before launching herself out of the seat.

Maybe she should have left the connection on a bit longer—then she’d have an idea of what Nick was up to, and when she might expect him.

All the same she double-checked the thermal clip in her pistol before climbing the steps towards Elvira’s third floor apartment.  The building was as nice as the street outside; the stairway was lined with cascading vertical gardens and there was a faint aroma of blooming flowers. On the third floor, Judy passed a pangolin cleaner, whose slow claws were methodically trimming the overgrowth and depositing the cuttings into a wastebasket. He smiled sleepily at Judy as she passed, seemingly oblivious to her drawn weapon.

Elvira’s apartment was the second unit from the stairs. She stepped forward and knocked sharply with one paw.

Silence greeted her from within.

“Ms. DeWitt?” Judy called, and knocked again. More silence.

“She should be home,” a voice said. Judy turned to see the pangolin, leaning on his wastebasket. “She works nights, she does, more often than not. Today’s her day off.”

Judy looked back at the door in surprise before her ears flattened. She reached to her belt for her supply of omni-gel and slapped it on the lock. When she brought up her omni-tool, she was surprised to see she’d missed a message from Nick.

_Carrots, you been to DeWitt yet? Maybe hold up—I got something to tell you, first,_ he’d sent. Then, when she hadn’t responded:

_Carrots? I’m on my way to DeWitt’s now. Wait for me, all right?_

Then: _We’re going to compare notes, just like I promised. Seriously—don’t do anything stupid_.

And before Judy could even gather the strength to feel outraged, her omni-tool buzzed with the incoming call. It, too, was Nick.

Heart racing, Judy hastily dismissed the call and lifted her omni-tool to the door, working her way through the lock. The omni-gel sizzled against the circuitry and the lock hissed open.

“Ms. DeWitt, I’m with Citadel Security,” she said, as the door opened with a chime and a pneumatic pop. Judy stepped inside a dark foyer, her eyes struggling. She passed one paw over the walls until she found a context-sensitive pad that brought up the lights, her other paw clutching her pistol tightly. With the lights up, she looked around—and brought both paws to her pistol, steadying her aim.

To her left was a small bathroom, and immediately in front of her was the kitchen area. A knife block had been overturned onto the counter; a jug of orange ran in rivulets down the side of the kitchen counter to pool in the grout between the tiles. Beyond, she could make out the living area, and a staircase that wound over Judy’s head into a loft.

At the foot of the staircase was a large, striped paw, its owner hidden from view by the curve of the stair. She was reminded of the alley—of Bagheera’s foot drawing her attention from what she’d first taken for a wine stain.

But there was no stain here. As Judy stepped forward, the floor was clean. For a brief moment she hoped that meant Elvira lived and, after sweeping the corners of the room and clearing the staircase for any targets, she stooped to check Elvira’s pulse.

She was wrong to hope; the tiger was dead. She was dressed in a lilac silk gown, and large brown eyes gazed lifelessly at the foot of a nearby divan. A knife lay near her outstretched paw, as if she’d been reaching for it in death.

_But—but I got here first,_ Judy thought, helplessly. And sure enough, she looked up at the open doorway to see a shadow standing within it.

Her pistol flew up.

“Carrots, it’s me,” Nick said, stepping in. “I tried to call you—I knew DeWitt was in danger, and I—“

“Stay back, Wilde,” Judy said, and she noticed he held his own pistol at his side. He stopped moving forward at the tone of her voice.

“Carrots?” he asked.

“Don’t call me that,” Judy said. She took a step backwards, glancing down to make sure she didn’t trip over Elvira’s extended paw.

_Stupid move_ , she thought. That’s all a Spectre would need to put a bullet between her eyes. But when she snapped her gaze back towards Nick, he held one paw in the air, the other seeming to holster his pistol.

“Hopps,” he said, his tone calm and his expression guarded. There was none of the sly, slick Nick of that morning, fawning and assuaging her fears while he convinced her to let him question Big alone. No, this Nick was—

“It’s not what you think. And you’re smart enough to know that,” he said. “I came to _stop_ her from getting killed—not to ensure it.”

“Liar,” she said. But that nagging voice in the back of her head was saying differently.

_You got here first_ , she thought. _He couldn’t have killed Elvira—not when he was with Mr. Big._

But maybe he’d come here before going to see Mr. Big—

But then, that didn’t make any sense, either. For surely he wouldn’t have encouraged her to go to Elvira if he thought she would find a body—not when, later, he would attempt to beat her there.

A flash of red flickered in her peripherals and she looked up into the loft to see a faint red light glinting in her direction. A laser pointer?

Her eyes widened—

“Judy!” Nick called her name at the same moment he leapt for her—not enough time to fire her pistol, nor jump out of the way.

_Dumb bunny_ , she thought, again, as the force of Nick’s weight hit her in the chest and she fell to the side. She heard a dull _thwip_ , like a striking whip, and looked to see the smouldering bullet hole in the thick beige carpet, inches from her hand.

As if on cue, she and Nick simultaneously rolled to opposite sides of the room. She raised her pistol and fired blindly into the loft, scurrying for cover behind a velvet divan. At the same moment, she heard the tell-tale thrum of biotics—the force smacked her to the side, throwing her forward and into the kitchen. Judy cried out, and there was the sound of breaking glass, and a shout from Nick that sounded guttural and fierce—

Her pistol was still in her hand, despite the force of the biotics, and she threw herself into cover behind the kitchen counter.

_Wilde—_

She peered over the edge of the couch to see he’d rolled, or been thrown, into the shadow of the staircase.  There was a wound in his leg, blood spilling onto the tile. The body of Elvira DeWitt lay between them.

“They’re getting away,” Nick growled. Judy looked. Shattered glass lay sprinkled across the shag carpet of the living room like sparkling beach sand. And the divan was gone—no doubt hurled through the window.

Judy vaulted across the largest shards of glass to look out the window—but the assassin, whoever they were, had already left.  The pedestrians on the streets below looked calm, sedate, and not at all riled by the recent passage of a biotic killer.

She turned her attention back to the loft and, pistol trained upwards, swept properly. Other than a large, unmade bed and a polished wooden dresser, it was empty.

She returned down the stairs to hear the sound of C-Sec sirens howling outside. Lupinsky and two officers—a black bear and a hippo—filed into the foyer, their weapons trained. The black bear held a riffle, and the hippos horned fingers thrummed with biotic energy.

Nick had been trying to apply a medi-gel to the wound on his leg, but he froze when he saw the two officers bearing down on him.

“Detective Lupinsky,” Judy said, gesturing towards the broken window. “We have a suspect on foot, armed and biotic, proceeding from the south side of the building.”

“So call it in, Hopps. We’re here for the Spectre,” Lupinsky said. The black bear stepped forward, the muzzle of his weapon pointed between Nick’s eyes.

“Nicholas Wilde, you are under arrest,” Lupinsky said, and the look of pleasure that unfurled across his face was hideous.


	9. Boned

The rims of Nick’s eyes went pale as the blood continued to drain from his body. Judy stepped forward, holstering her pistol and crouching to apply medi-gel to the wound on his leg. She noticed as she did so, out of the corner of her eye, the black bear—what was her name? Bruinswick?—train her rifle towards her with a slight twitch of the muzzle. Judy pretended not to notice, tending instead to Nick’s wound.  

“Step away from the suspect, rabbit,” Lupinsky said. There was the click of a thermal clip from Bruinswick’s rifle.

“He’s injured, Detective,” Judy said.  The gel coated the wound, congealing the fabric of his trousers to the russet fur beneath. Not exactly an ideal application, but it would do until they could get him back to C-Sec.

“So let him bleed,” Lupinsky said, with a voice like a spire.  Judy hunched her shoulders.

“Carrots,” Nick said, under his breath. Judy avoided his gaze, reaching for the cuffs at her belt. Nick clenched his paws into fists but otherwise didn’t resist as she shackled his arms together behind his back. Once done, Judy stood, turning to look at the officers in the doorway.

_Just the three_? Judy thought. _For a rogue Spectre?_   Lupinsky would have jumped at the call, that was certain—but where was everyone else?

“There’s more to this than I thought,” Judy said. “Wilde couldn’t have been working alone.”

_And now our other suspect got away_ , she added bitterly to herself.

“And I look forward to getting the truth out of him,” Lupinsky said. He gestured with one vengeful thumb and Bruinswick moved forward, hoisting Nick to his feet. The fox hissed at the jolt through his wounded leg.

“There’s no need for that, officer. He’ll come quietly,” Judy said. _At least, I hope_. She still couldn’t bring herself to meet Nick’s gaze, so she turned to look at the hippo, whose biotics continued to shimmer despite the threat having passed. As she did, she caught a brief glance between him and Lupinsky: a twitch of Higgins’ eyebrows, a short jerk of the snout from Lupinsky.

She looked to Nick before she could stop himself. His eyes were wide, staring at her with a silent intensity Judy didn’t know how to read. She was sure he was trying to communicate something but what it was, she couldn’t be sure. His gaze flicked to the hippo. Judy followed his look but the blue glow was gone as the hippo relaxed.

Bruinswick jabbed Nick in the back with her rifle and he stumbled forward, his feet slipping on his own blood. Judy looked down at the congealing puddles.

No blood from Bagheera, no blood from Elvira. Just a mystery baker and now Nick—and no idea how, exactly, he was involved in this whole mess.

_Nothing makes sense_. _Why bring me along to investigate a murder he was trying to cover up? Why send me to question Elvira and then stop me? Why save my life from his own accomplice?_

She wished more than anything that she could ask him—but once Lupinsky sunk his teeth into this she could kiss her involvement goodbye. Nick would walk into a sound-proof cell and come out mysteriously worse for wear, answers beaten out of him like he was a pillow in need of a good fluffing.

Judy took a step towards the door and felt a cold, slick stickiness beneath her foot. She recoiled in alarm, heart racing, to see the red stain on the pad of her foot.

_Blood_ , she thought. Not Nick’s—it was too close to the door, and Nick hadn’t come this way yet. She looked at the tiles and saw the thin, spotty trail leading towards the entrance.

She couldn’t possibly have missed it coming in. Could she? Maybe so focussed on Elvira she’d neglected the evidence right in front of her?

She held out a paw to stop Lupinsky and the others before they could make the same mistake as she and further contaminate the crime scene—but then her eye snagged on Higgins’ leg. Stopped in her tracks as she was, Bruinswick and Higgins converged around her and made their way to the door, obliterating the trail of blood in their tracks. But Judy stared at a spot on Higgin’s leg, a few inches above his ankle.

Higgins’ leg was also injured, a small but jagged slice sheared through his pant leg to the rough skin beneath. It was just enough for a tiny rivulet to twist down his leg, sprinkling red beads onto the tile as he walked.

_No_ , Judy thought, desperately. Because she only had a moment to react. Only had enough time to make a decision here, now, in this apartment, before the option to do anything at all could be taken away from her forever.

Her eyes darted to the broken window—more _obliterated_ than broken. The creature upstairs hadn’t _sounded_ large but with strong biotics they could have floated as they threw themselves from the room above—

Judy looked up in time to see Lupinsky studying her, his eyes like two black stones. Was it the same amount of disdain he always spared for her, as he cast his disapproval upon her? Or this time, was he wondering what to do with her when all this was over?

_Sweet cheese and crackers._

Her eyes met Nick’s, turning to look over his shoulder. Bruinswick almost had him at the door, and then it would be into the car, into C-Sec—and all hope of fixing whatever hot mess this investigation had become would be beyond her. Nick’s brow was furrowed in resignation but when he saw the expression on her face his eyes slowly widened in alarm.

“Carrots, don’t—” he said.

Judy was already reaching for her belt, where she kept extra ammunition rounds. Quickly, before anyone could stop her, she grabbed a concussion round and slammed it into the barrel of her pistol.

She turned, training the gun on Lupinsky’s head. He was already reaching for his own pistol at his side but she fired, hitting him square between the eyes. He was wearing shields, of course, but the close range sent them shuddering into submission, and as the concussion detonated it was enough to make even Judy see stars.

Lupinsky staggered backwards. His foot slipped in the puddle of Nick’s blood and he toppled over Elvira DeWitt’s lifeless body.

_Please be unconscious. Please be unconscious_ , she thought. But she couldn’t check to be sure, because Higgins’ biotics were already humming back to life, and she had to roll out of the way to avoid a slapdash warp sent her way.

“Dumb bunny!” Nick snapped. He turned and ducked, head-butting Bruinswick right in the gut. The bear let out a loud gasp as the wind was knocked from her diaphragm but she whirled around, slashing down with the butt of her rifle. Nick dodged but with his wounded leg he staggered and fell to the ground.

Judy fired another round at the bear but if landed slightly to her right, slamming into the wall and bringing a gilded frame off its hinge to shatter upon the ground. Bruinswick’s shields flickered but ultimately held.

Higgins charged at her and Judy jumped onto the kitchen counter, somersaulting backwards into the living room. Higgins’ arm swept out and Judy felt herself lifted bodily, pushed backwards by the force of his biotics.

Flung backwards, she grasped wildly around her and managed to grip a sconce affixed to the wall before she could be hurled into the jagged shards of what was left of the window.

“Nick, get off your tail!” Judy said. She swung from the sconce, landing solidly feet from Lupinsky’s still-prone body—so at least he was down for the count.   _Only two to deal with, then_. _You got this._

Bruinswick turned the muzzle of her rifle on Nick, who rolled to the side before getting to his feet. With surprising agility, considering his condition, he ducked between Bruinswick’s legs, allowing Judy to fire another concussive round straight into Bruinswick’s shields. Nick’s ears flattened against the blast and he staggered into Judy but Bruinswick, far bigger than Lupinsky, merely shook her head to clear it, and barreled towards them, her face twisted into a pained grimace.

“Really wish you hadn’t cuffed me, Carrots!” Nick said, his hands still restricted behind his back.

“Just stay clear!” Judy’s pulse was pounding in her ears as Bruinswick charged towards her.

“You’re a damn traitor, rabbit!” Bruinswick shouted. Judy slid out of the way, vaulting once more over the kitchen counter as Higgins blasted off another warp—this time, hitting Bruinswick square in the face. Nick was also caught in the crossfire and as his body went flying; Judy snatched him by the wrist, pulling him along to the door.

_Traitor, traitor_ , Judy thought—though how she had time to think it, between the _WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING_ and _OH GOD OH GOD_ echoing in her thoughts, she had no idea.

Judy jerked her right arm over her shoulder, her omni-tool flashing as she attempted to dampen Higgins’ biotics. Whether or not she hit, she couldn’t be sure, but she heard another roar of frustration.

Nick’s avocado-coloured car was parked at the corner, right next to her scooter—and Lupinsky’s black vehicle. The passenger side door unlocked at the proximity of Nick’s omnitool and she threw it open, hauling herself into the driver seat as Nick flopped in next to her.

The car roared to life as she started the engine, just in time to have Higgins and Bruinswick launching themselves towards the car. Judy pulled the car into a hover a few feet off the ground but with Nick barely contained in the passenger side seat, and the door still open like an arcing wing, the ascent was slow and shuddering.

“Hang on!” Judy said.

“To what?” Nick shouted. “ _With_ what?”

Bruinswick reached up and snagged the edge of the car, tilting it towards her, and Judy had to throw her arm out and grab Nick by the collar to keep him from toppling down upon the furious bear.

“This is not our finest moment, Carrots!” Nick yelled, his voice strangled in her grip.

 Without kinetic barriers there was no way to cast her off, so Judy released the wheel to lean over and fire a concussive slug beneath Bruinswick’s eyes.  The blast made Nick yelp in alarm but Bruinswick let go and the sudden release caused the vehicle to veer straight into traffic.

Judy dropped her pistol and it slid beneath the passenger seat. Seizing the wheel, jerked out of the way just in time to avoid a head-on collission, cars honking around them.

“Please don’t get us killed!” Nick howled.

“I’m really only interested in constructive criticism right now, Nick!” she replied.

Suddenly a wave crashed into the side of the car, and Judy thought they’d been hit by another vehicle before realizing Higgins’ biotics must have returned. Nick flew out of the passenger seat, slumping into Judy’s side—but the force of the biotics slammed the passenger side door, as well, and when the vehicle rolled back into an upright hover Judy was able to throw Nick off of her and back into the passenger side.

“Drive!” Nick roared.

Judy weaved above the flow of traffic in order to swerve into the oncoming lane, whipping the vehicle around with enough force to send Nick slamming into the passenger side door again.  He yelped as his arms were pinned beneath him, and Judy hastily brought the car down to zip into another maintenance tunnel.

Lupinsky was down—likely Bruinswick was, too. So it was up to Higgins to pursue them in Lupinsky’s black sedan. And sure enough, the dark crest of the vehicle appeared in Judy’s rear view as it lurched into the maintenance tunnel behind them, scrapping against the sides of the tunnel.

That was one advantage of Nick’s old beater: it was far smaller than the other vehicle, and it could take the sharp turns of the maintenance tunnel far more easily. But Higgins was not an incompetent driver, and he kept up even as they took a sharp turn and a matching nosedive into a vertical shaft.

“We are so bo— _ohhhned!_ ” Nick cried, the g-forces pressing him against the back of the seat. Judy threw the car into a higher gear and reached over with her right hand to fiddle with the cuffs.

“What are you doing?! Pay attention to the road!” he said as Judy winged an antenna jutting out from the far wall.

“I thought you wanted to be uncuffed!” The cuffs released on the signal from her omni-tool and he leaned forward to grab the steering wheel, jerking the car up at the end of its long dive.

“Ten and two, Hopps! _Ten and two_!”

She slapped his hands away, once again taking the wheel, and veered left, bringing them out into a busy street.

“Your car is the worst,” Judy said, as they merged into traffic. In the rear view, Higgins swerved into the lane behind them, the black sedan looking far worse for wear.

“Is now really the time to pick on our get-away vehicle?” Nick asked. His paws, uncuffed, were busy manipulating his omni-tool.

“It is _bright green_ ,” Judy said, accusingly.

“It’s my favourite colour!”

“ _That is exactly the problem_.”

Nick threw open the passenger side door. Beside them, a car swerved out of the way, honking furiously. Nick leaned out, pointing his omni-tool behind them.

“Need a clear shot!” he called over the rushing wind.  Judy complied, pulling the car up and out of traffic, skimming as close as she dared to the roof of the tunnel.

“Got it!” Nick whooped, hastily pulling himself back into the car and closing the door. Their silhouette once again streamlined, Judy pulled themselves up into another vertical shaft. Behind them, Judy heard another cacophony of car horns followed by a swift and mighty boom. Nick cheered again, cackling as he turned to peer through the back window.

“What’d you do?” she asked, eyes flicking to the rear view. So far, there was no sign of Higgins.

“Cut his engines. I’d put a grenade on the underside of Lupinsky’s car last time I saw it at C-Sec,” he said. “You know, just in case something like this should, uh … happen.”

The relief that had been coursing threw her at first was suddenly dampened, and she felt a hot itch creeping up her throat like bile.

“Oh,” she said.

“Relax! We did it. We got away! Head left here—I know a safe place we can go,” Nick said.

“Okay,” Judy said. She swallowed.

_I am so boned_.


End file.
